Creative Writers' Guild

John the Baptist

Wed, 01 May 2013 14:31:19 -0400

by Michael L. Stewart

—

I remember when I wanted to please my mother
so I ran with scissors —

up the asphalt Jordan, freshly paved,
past three doors — a pilgrimage for little legs.
My mission brought me under his window,
that old man with his loud dog inside,
tranquilized by television,
and there I sliced the heads
from lilacs budding beside the house;
stole them from under his nose
and brought them to her on a silver platter.

She put them in a vase of hand-blown glass
so they could breathe on the kitchen windowsill —
they spent three days in their transparent prison,
falling prey to sweating sun and air thick,
as if from heavy bathhouse steam.
When they at last forfeited themselves,
she squeezed the color from their veins and
pressed them in a book, their new tomb between two pages
marked ‘Cecilia’ and ‘Valerian’ —

In the end, I hear they met God.
Will I be so fortunate?

Freight

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 16:00:50 -0400

by Rose Chiango

—

A blackness through deep green
shudders on the mountain
traveling West through cyads and cones.
Birds, swirling like the smoke,
deer scenting on the skirts of forests.

The transcontinental train slithers its way
through me, my children,
rigid timeworn buttes
buttressed against a blank sky
I am here; do they know?

Still the men squat low, swing long,
suffer languidly in our sun
sweating to see a vision realized.
They are searching for lost dreams
in the forest.

They forsook the east and hope to gain
the occident by accident
running with torches, yet without light.
A sparked Promethean fire guards
against engulfing green
which creeps towards them, in the night.

Circled camps huddle, silently hoping
that this verdence bears no ill will —
though outwardly they show bravado.
Each is spinning tapestries in-mind
around the pines’ filigree fingers.

I observe they shall prevail —
yet awareness of my scrutiny?
A disquiet leaching through hearts,
a reticent fright
that they destroy
what they are searching for.

Harold

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 20:04:58 -0400

by Alexandra Barbush

—

When Harold looked into the mirror, he saw a face he felt was hard to recognize at first. Had he always looked so worn, jaded by the monotony of nine to five labor. His hair was black with spritz of gray white especially noticeable on the sides, closest to his ears. He pulled his wide palms across his face, as if to spread some energy between his wrinkles to smooth down the deepening cracks lining his mouth and eyes, almost overnight. His wise nose seemed flatter, bloated with drink and the inevitable heartache that either accompanies or causes it. With one swift tilt he emptied remainders of his flask down his throat. Empty, it felt heavy in his hand; the rust of overuse hardened it, he supposed. He wouldn’t even taste it- only feel the burn in his throat melt into a warmth that spread across his rib cage.

He turned to dress in the sad room where he slept. It couldn’t be said as dirty just yet- only uncared for. His bedside table hung heavy with the weight of faded newspapers. He barely read them past the first page but promised he would catch up someday. He stooped down, his left hand instinctually reaching to his lower back, to ready himself for any new pain arisen over night. Harold pulled on the denim jeans he had worn two days ago, pulled a rumpled long sleeve t shirt from his wardrobe.

The light stung his eyes when he flicked it on in the hall. He couldn’t eat in the mornings but still groped for the freezer door. Pulling out a bottle of dark liquid, he started the coffee pot- pouring the chilled liquor into the bottom of his coffee cup. The rusted flask still sat in his pocket; he emptied the same dark liquor and put it into his back pocket once more. There was a wet knife on the counter, he couldn’t remember ever using it. Still, he used it to spread peanut butter over two slices of bread and hastily put them into a brown paper bag.

The work day was monotonous- yet standing at a conveyor belt for eight hours put pressure on his already slipped disks and by lunch he felt fatigued. He had been at the factory for the last twenty years, after moving back when his mother had died. He never intended to stay; but he had. Noon struck, but before removing his peanut butter sandwich from his locker with the rest of the line workers, he stepped outside to smoke a cigarette and slip into his flask without being noticed.

He sighed out the white cold air along with the smoke when he leaned against the chipped white paint of the cinderblocks. He didn’t like cigarettes, but what other excuse but addiction could be used to slip outside for a few minutes? He could smoke if he had whiskey with it. And so punctuated the next ten minutes: two drags and one gulp, two drags, one gulp; until he had finished the top half of the flask. He was warmer as he flicked the stub between calluses and onto the black top.

He pulled the door open, startling the man coming through on the other side. It was Randall- the line supervisor. Harold shut his mouth quickly, hoping to keep any hint of liquor behind his teeth.

“Randall”, he pushed over his tongue.

“Harry”, said Randall with warm eyes, “That stuff’ll kill you.”

Harold looked down at the hinge on the door.

“Sir.”

The last four hours mimicked the first. He watched the plastics go by on the belt, barely thought about them at all until an abnormality caught his eye. Press the button.

The day finished; Harold collected his coat and stood by the bus stop. The sound of empty tin sloshed when he rose the flask to his lips. He could get a mickey from the store across the street and risk missing the bus, or wait until he got home. He had three minutes; he did it.

He stepped onto the pavement with the brown paper bag around the small bottle of whiskey, cursed as he saw the bus turn the corner at the light.

I don’t know how he didn’t hear the breaks screech blacker across the street tar. He didn’t. They told me later that the driver had been drinking. I guess he knew it would kill him, didn’t he?

Between You and Me and Ice Alley

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 18:00:00 -0400

by Tyler Barton

—

Call me creepy.

Dad does.

He says to me daily: “Nolan if you do not stop peeping out that forsaken window I will move your bed to the other side of the house.” Eavesdropping he calls it—calls me an eavesdropper. But, like, if the people down there in the alley wake me up every morning even before Dad is up boiling water for coffee or tying and retying his tie, how am I to blame? I’m a light sleeper and you can’t change that.

I guess I should explain this window (really the only window in our studio apartment—that means one big empty room—on the third floor) and how my mattress on the floor puts me right at the base of its cross shape. This window is like floor to ceiling: a giant Holy Catholic Cross. You know, the four points are like arrows, each end curved like a clover. When the moon is bright (or when the sun is up) there’s this yellow X of light drawn on the floor.

Sleeping on my side, head down on my pillow, my eyes point right out into the city. I believe it is east. My east at least.

So they wake me up, the people down on Ice Avenue (which is much more like an alley—I’ve never seen a car drive down it). As early as four or five their voices begin to echo up the bricks and my eyes are open—my ears as well. I haven’t yet learned how to close my ears. My dad told me no one likes eavesdroppers or smartasses when I told him that thing about turning my ears off.

Usually it is all just mumbles. Sometimes a shout and some quick loud walking. But it’s summer now and neither of us can sleep with the heat (although Dad claims he can, I see him over there—the starlight in through the window shows me his dry, open eyes). So I sleep with the window open. When it’s open I hear clear as crystals.

This morning for example, when my eyes opened I was looking through the cross. The man below was not the same man who had been there since back March—that man was short and tan (almost like green) skinned. The current guy has hair like flames but he keeps it all tucked up in a loose beanie hat.

The ginger was talking when I looked down this morning—talking to an old woman.

This woman, I met her once back a few months ago when I was walking home from school (Holy Trinity Middle). That day she was whining to that short, greenish man in the alley.

She said, “Andrew come home now. Why you quit grocer stand in alley all day? Here on Ice? It so cold. You not work. Come home to room.” She talked like that.

I ran up into the house and the X on the floor pointed me right to the window. So I sat on my bed and opened it, letting the cold air blow in with their voices.

The short man said to her: “Mom, I’m working. Please go.”

So she yelled: “No you not work. You not work three week. Mr. Davis fire!”

“I quit, Mom. Would you go home? I’ll stop by this week.”

“Andy where you go?”

The man said: “Mom. Go,” and he pointed the old woman back the way she came.

I asked Dad when he got home from work (he works at my school as a counselor, so he gets in later than I do, usually around four) and he said, “The pole? Andrelcyzk? Probably pissed about something.”

I nodded my head. She was mad, I think.

Then Dad wanted to talk about school and he said Sister Patricia told him I don’t pay attention ever and I look out the window too much and I’m always “drifting out”.

I told him: “Well that woman, Mrs. Andr—whatever, she was down there pleading with this guy, her—“

But he said: “Nolan. Forget it. Don’t listen to other people talk in the street. Just get home after school. And keep that damned window closed.” I had forgot it. He walked over and shut it.

But this morning when I woke and heard her again and looked down on Ice alley I could tell she was sad.

She kept begging the ginger.

She said: “Please. Son Andy need med. All gone”

“Lady, what do you want? Get out of here.”

“Andy sick, sick in bed. Mr. Davis fire. No eat. Lie in bed. Shake. Shaking all time.”

“Keep your voice down.”

“But Andy not well. No work. No—“

“Grandma what do you want me to do? You really shouldn’t be here. I’ve got—“

“You give me med. RX. I give I—I pay.”

The man shook his head and started walking south down Ice alley, away from her.

“No no. No leave. Pay! I pay!” She yelled at him and then reached into her bag and took out a little coin pouch. It was designed to look like a flag with one big white stripe on top of one big red one. She was yelling still, I think to and get him to turn around, to show him her purse. The ginger kept walking. This is when she cranked her arm back and lobbed her little half-red/half-white purse at his back. It flew in this, like, tall but short arc. It touched the heel of the man’s shoe. This made him turn.

He said to her: “What I got. Not what son need. Son need help. Hospital. Do you know hospital?” He stared at her and then bent down and picked up her pouch, and then he said: “Take your fucking quarters.”

She started screaming. She spit in a similar arc that landed somewhere near the man’s foot.

“No. Listen. Ass. Idiot ass. I need rock. Take purse. Give rock. Andy—Andy need…”

“Be quiet damn-it. Shut up.”

Her shouts stopped and she looked down at the alley-top. Then I think she started shaking.

He turned away from her to walk back down the Ice alley but she grabbed his arm.

She said: “Make him crying stop. Make him sit up. Make him eat.”

They both stared at each other and he didn’t move her hand from his arm. Maybe she was holding him there. Maybe she was really strong.

Finally the ginger spoke as he took off his hat and pulled something out of it: “Here. Here is a gram. Its Andy’s—if there really is some money in this thing.” He ripped open the zipper and dumped a bunch of coins onto the street. They rolled around and bounced in different directions. Along with the change fell two folded greenish bills. (That’s the green! The short man, Andrew—his skin was kind of murky green like those wrinkly bills.) The ginger picked them up and examined them, holding them up against the light even though it was, like, five and the sun was just barely coming up over the city buildings. I was squinting the whole time.

The old lady said: “All I have now. Get more bank.”

“No more. Here. Take it and walk away. Now.” He handed her a little bottle you use to hold film and one of the bills. He said: “Now go buy him a tie. And some coffee.”

“He has tie. We drink coffee,” was the last thing she said.

She turned away and I think she was crying. I think she walked home.

So this morning when Dad woke up and saw me, he asked me if I really wanted to have my bed moved away from the damned window. I rubbed my eyes and I asked him: “Can we move?”

He said: “Why?”

I said: “I don’t want to watch these people anymore.”

And then he said: “These people are everywhere. But you don’t have to watch them. You shouldn’t—that’s what I’m telling you.”

But then what do I do?

On Marriage and becoming One

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 17:25:12 -0400

by Christian Stock

—

I am a weathered window pane.

I have blocked the lashings of

the wind so that you could

enjoy the breeze. I struggle

to get out of bed,

but no knows this better

than you love.

I have cracked

the skin from my elbows to my knees.

I am old on the inside,

my gears catch on one another

from years of rust.

My lungs scrape like

metal plates with each

breath.

My ankle is like a Mars rover, lost

on the desolate planet—still ticking

against an eternity of blackness.

I cannot feel, and you

feel too much. Repeatedly driving you

late at night from the warmth of your bed

and

leaving your face in the wind to grow cold

like museum marble. You are

a nerve

rubbed raw

throbbing

violently

against the suffocation

of social norms and I

will be the iron suit for your

naked self. I will walk with you

through this life, shielding you within my

dead nerves and snapped synapses

giving you shelter within the hollowed out

veins of my wrists and the heaving

of my heart. When it’s all said and done

tell me everything you felt.

Glass Melts (Snow)

Thu, 03 Jan 2013 20:51:00 -0500

by Tyler Barton

—

There seems to be nowhere that is without snow.
All the way across the flat country
on old, ancient, bled-out American roads,
dried-out,
crunchy snow drift prairies.

Eyes see always behind so many layers of glass.
The car window, whitely marred with salt-spots,
dusty streaks.
Rolling it down: the white sky
and snowpacked road-banks not yet soiled
by passing trucks.
It is clear, pure focus.
Wind exhales harsh and loud.

The first of the Rocky Mountains
—with it the first bare sun,
blue watercolor mix of sky,
visible, with snow still
and shiny on a windless plain.

Each tree a photographed snowflake,
spread open like flowering fingers;
capillaries, all pumping blood into the
thin air of Colorado lungs.

Silent trains flow straight along
the entire length of the highway.
The whole long chain you can see
from start to finish.

Dare I Eat A Peach?

Thu, 03 Jan 2013 20:44:50 -0500

by Tyler Barton

—

Could I touch toes?
Did the little electric jumper
that sprang from your broken earbud
hop on my knee
when they touched
beneath the coffee shop’s table?
Can I give it back to you?

Horizontally, a mental blocker
had taken over.
I needed to lean in closer,
but without embarrassed smiling.
Without red faces.
Sober, surefooted
Grown-up embraces.

When are you grown up?
How do you know?
Hybrid cursive words.

The old mind

Tue, 27 Nov 2012 23:38:50 -0500

by Roos Bulthuis

—

There is no way to save words for later. Maybe you’ll die or even worse, the world will end, so just tell me now. I wash your face and see your memories floating in your eyes, it makes me curious, so I dig into your mind and try to find the words you’re saving. I find your life.

It started at a windy Wednesday morning, you were six years and seven days, but you still thought it was your birthday and that you were allowed to choose what to eat. You said you wanted to eat pizza, like every time you were allowed to choose what to eat. Pizza and Pepsi, because you saw your older brother drinking Pepsi from a soda can while you were drinking lemonade with a straw and you admire your older brother, so you want to do everything he does. Mum said that you had to eat vegetables today and you cried.

A year minus seven days later you turned seven and you woke up at seven after seven so it was your lucky day. Usually you get your presents at eight, so you waited patiently until your mum came in to wake you up and take you to the breakfast table where a present was waiting for you. However, 53 minutes later, nobody walked in. You waited thirty seconds and decided to go to the breakfast table yourself. A present was waiting for you and you opened the box to find a new video game and you started playing it.

I try to find the end of the story, but there is nothing else. You gaze at me and smile, I smile back and change your socks. If the world ends, you better wear clean socks.

A World of Broken Bones

Tue, 27 Nov 2012 23:37:13 -0500

By Shelby Feeney

—

Tonight our bodies are born of smoke.

We are children, taught through the pits of heartache

held tightly in our stomach lining

and in years of love that dance across

our eyelids to settle into our pupils.

Tonight the earth has ceased to exist

and there is no dirt underneath my fingernails or

knives along your tongue.

Instead there is only you and I

teetering along the edge of this dead cities burning lights

where the stars forget to twinkle and the dandelions are nothing but weeds.

Our footsteps are earthquakes to the grass below us

And our voices creak like our breaking bones until the wind is pleading our names.

You told me that I would live forever. But my heart beats to fast and too hard for people I have loved too much for too long. Eventually my chest will cave in and then I will realize that forever cannot exist if we never learn to live.

You look at me with eyes like a fallen Ferris wheel

and together we lay above the earths skeleton.

You are quiet and I am screaming and we are two separate galaxies collided in fire and retractable razor blades.

Tonight your kiss tastes of iron and there is blood on my brow and we are intoxicated by burning lungs and gasoline kisses. .

Tonight you hold me in the center of your palms and the spark of your touch turns my oxygen to gunpowder.

We lay in a field of shattered spines and tonight

I am alive in a world of broken bones.

Migration

Mon, 05 Nov 2012 09:26:31 -0500

by Cat Ardes

—

The days of sun rays kissing my skin and the warm summer breeze running through my hair are over.
I welcome the mornings where I have to hug myself to feel warm
The changing colors of leaves remind me of the seasons overlap
Geese flock south above my head to flee from this new climate
I envy them.
They know where they are going
And understand what they are supposed to do
But I’m here
I watch them become a distant arrow in the sky
Maybe they’re pointing me to you
I’ll never know
I like to think I’ll see those geese again one day.

inherited love

Thu, 25 Oct 2012 20:18:53 -0400

by Allison Rickert

—

i think of love in dog years,
of every blink of a doe
caught in her fawn’s eye.
i think of it filling
my mother to the edge
of her soul,
until she lets it spill
over the blond lashes
of her lower eyelid.
i think of her
as a young skinny thing
with a chasm in her chest
entering a house
where the dirty stuffing
is oozing from jagged rents
in the sofa, where the floors
have seen too many harsh heels
and they cry with every careful
tiptoed step my mother takes.
i think of my mother
stooping to touch the amber-eyed
kitten padding across the room;
i think of the chasm in her chest
aching when she watches
a heroin needle get driven
into the kitten’s gray fur,
straight between her shoulder blades.
and i imagine my mother
with that love spilling
out of her, tucking the kitten
underneath her shirt
and stealing her.
i think of my father
sitting on a tiled floor
for four hours
trying to get her bristled fur accustomed
to the sweep of his brown fingers
as her tiny paws shook
and she detoxed
until she finally looked at my father
and purred.
i think of my mother
with me tucked under her shirt
and her love caught
in the delicate spaces
between my black eyelashes,
my father
and his love infused
into the stretched webbing
between my fingers
that i can see clearly
when my hand is splayed.
i think of that cat,
clambering onto my father’s
shoulder every morning
as he made coffee
and that cat,
curled and purring
beneath my mother’s bed.

mother's work

Thu, 27 Sep 2012 21:59:00 -0400

by Allison Rickert

—

at my mother’s work there is a water cooler. i like to fill styrofoam cups with cold water so that i can enjoy the novelty of sipping it through one of those neat coffee straws. sometimes i draw pictures and give them to my mother as she clacks away at a computer in her office. the sunshine streams in through a window; on the floor there is the striped pattern of bars, like a jail cell.

i am five or six or seven and i like the sound the rickety stairs make as i go up and down, my hand on the smooth wooden railing, up and down. my mother says not to go down a certain hallway, i’ll disturb people if i do and i am not supposed to. i avoid the hallway.

there’s an ancient television in a large empty conference room and i can watch fuzzy VHS tapes of looney tunes cartoons, my favorite one featuring foghorn leghorn. i sit at an enormous table and drink my chilled water and watch. my mother clacks on her computer and makes phone calls in her office, i shyly reply to her female coworkers that come into the room, asking me questions with wide motherly smiles. there are no men in this building.

there are bars over my mother’s office window and there are bars over every single window on the lower floor. it’s to keep the monsters out.

i make friends with a boy named alex, i show him the water cooler and the coffee straws. he’s delighted. we sip water together. we can’t go play outside because my mother told me not to open any doors ever. i let alex use my crayons and markers to draw a picture for his mother — she’s also in the building, upstairs. i proudly tell him that my mother’s name is katherine and i know how to spell it. i then trace out her last name, tacked onto the end of her first.

alex asks me, “so you’re allison lory?”

“no,” i reply. “i’m allison rickert.”

“why don’t you have the same last name as your mom?”

“i don’t know.”

maybe i ask my mother later why this is. she probably tells me it was because she liked her name and she didn’t want to change it when she got married. that’s something you can tell a child. i continue giving her pictures in scraggly handwriting with her real name on them.

there is a man at the door. he wants to come in. my mother says, “stay in here, don’t go near the window,” and she has me stand in her dim office. the front door is locked, and he is pounding his fist on it, standing outside and waiting. when someone knocks you answer. i stay in my mother’s office. none of the women are speaking; the man’s knocking is resounding in an eerie quiet, echoing off the walls, and the women sit with their lips pressed together.

there are no men in this building.

alex is gone, my mother says his mom had to move and take him with her. i ask if we can visit. she says no. i stand at the water cooler by myself and fill a cup halfway, but don’t drink it. foghorn leghorn stutters in a void of my disinterest.

sometimes my mother doesn’t know what to do. she comes home and she sits on her bed and she watches tv, and i think it’s so she can forget. she has this glassy film over her eyes and her expression is vacant when she speaks. she asks my father questions that he doesn’t know how to answer, like why does this happen to someone who doesn’t deserve it and how is she supposed to live. sometimes my mother is haggard, sometimes my mother cries.

my mother shelters me while i stand on a floor built to shelter. above my tiny head and my uncomplicated silly cartoons are numerous women and children stuffed into small rooms with small beds, sharing one kitchen with other women and children with their own small rooms with small beds. the thing about monsters is, an overwhelming number of them look human. alex knows this long before i do; he stands in front of that water cooler with me because he’d watched his father repeatedly punch his mother in the face.

my mother works in a building full of haunted eyes. it infects her, it follows her home, it bleeds into her mind until she cannot make her children dinner because she can’t will herself to get up. her job requires her to not tell any of us the names of those bruised women because of liability. her instincts require she tell her own children as little about her job as possible, like a war veteran keeping quiet about the mangled corpses, the blood. my mother has haunted eyes.

i am eighteen when my friend jenny tells me that her boyfriend had once reached around her shoulders and pressed a dull pocketknife against her jugular.

i ask my mother, “how do you keep yourself from hating men?”

“you just have to remind yourself that not all men are bad. there are very good men just like there are very bad men.” and then my mother pauses, looks down. i wonder if she is thinking of all those women in all those rooms up the rickety stairs, wearing long sleeves to hide fading bruises. or the woman who went to a hospital with flimsy excuses for her head injury and a fledgling doctor looked at her scans and blurted, oh my god, he is going to kill you the next time around. or the woman who couldn’t find a place to escape her husband for so long because she didn’t speak any english and if she had been able to, she wouldn’t have suffered the kick that ended her pregnancy. my mother quietly says, “but some days it’s hard. some days it’s really hard.”

most of the time an abused woman will not attempt to leave until her husband begins beating the children. i think about alex grinning around a brown coffee straw, did he know pain?

my mother kept her maiden name because she liked it. but she also kept it because the man pounding on the locked door of the shelter with bared teeth and monster eyes, if he ever found out her name he might try to find her. and if he looked he would only skim over my father’s name. rickert is a shield, a shelter.

i sit on the bed next to my mother. she’s watching a show featuring spoiled housewives drinking alcohol from thin-stemmed wine glasses and getting angry at one another, the most mindless thing she can find. my mother’s hands are in her lap. i ask her how her day was.

her lips pull down for a moment, her eyes are fixed on the screen. she tells me, “fine.”

Chapter 1: The Stranger in the Fields

Fri, 21 Sep 2012 22:41:40 -0400

by Nolan Dondero

—

“Urrrggggg.”

The boy dropped his tool and stretched back, hands on his hips. He wiped his brow. After a moment, he reached down to his canteen and brought it to his lips, squeezing out a pitiful amount of water. He allowed the canteen to fall back to his side, then fell back into sitting position on the ground with a sigh.

The boy was somewhere in his early twenties at about average height. His light brown hair was cropped short, as it always was during the summer. His honest eyes were light brown as well. At his side lay his personal scythe. Its rounded blade was slightly dulled and streaked with plant matter, but it gleamed under the midday sun. Behind him stretched a harvested corn field, a hard day’s work. It had been exhausting work for a one-man crew, but the boy took pride in his work as always.

The boy dropped his head between his propped legs, and then stared out at the neighboring field. He could trace the lines of harvesting as the neighbors’ slaves moves through the field. He watched them for almost a minute, entranced and slightly disgusted by the cruel efficiency with which they operated.

As he was about to stand, something zipped through the corner of his vision. He cast a cursory glance over the adjacent fields, then scrutinized each row of rigid crops for a more subtle disturbance. Glancing over the field one last time with no results, he decided that it must have been his imagination and shrugged it off. Grabbing his scythe, he stood and stretched again. With a deep breath, he turned to the crops that still remained standing. He hefted the scythe above head, and then swung it down and around him through the stalks before him.

“Whoa!”

The boy, surprised by the sudden break in silence, stumbled backwards as the crops he had just sliced fell to the dirt, revealing a man standing just beyond the sweep of the scythe. The scythe slipped from the boy’s hands and, without enough time to adjust his balance, he continued to spin and fell flat on his stomach in the dirt. He grunted as the impacted winded him.

As he gasped for air, the boy heard footsteps amidst the rustle of a cloak, then felt someone reach under his arm and heft him up. Using the hand to aid him, the boy stood upright. The man stepped away and the boy brushed off his shirt and overalls.

“Sorry ‘bout that,” the man said. “I suppose I should have called out. I assumed you were taking a lunch break when you sat down like that.”

“S’alright,” the boy said, “as long as no one’s hurt.”

The boy, satisfied with the condition of his clothing, turned to get his first good look at the man. He was wearing a long, earthy brown robe with a deep hood that partially shadowed his tan face. He was young, perhaps in his mid-thirties, with sharp but handsome features. What struck the boy as odd, though, was that the man’s irises were a shade of yellow, and what little of the hair that fell across his face was white, almost silvery.

After a moment of observing the traveler, the boy walked over to where his scythe lay and asked, “Can I ask what you’re doing here? I’m not gonna throw you out, but there’s gotta be a reason you snuck onto our property instead’a using the door.”

The stranger ignored the questions and gazed intently at the boy.

The boy shifted the grip on his scythe and persisted: “Sir, tell me why you’re in our fields.”

The stranger still stared.

“Sir, if you’re not going to answer me,” the boy said, brandishing the scythe at the traveler, “you’re gonna have to leave. Or I’ll…” He hesitated, gulping. “Or I’ll have to make you leave.”

The man raised one eyebrow as he took a half step back. His robe rustled.

“This is your last warning. Get out,” the boy threatened.

The traveler’s mouth turned up into a small, grim smile.

The boy sighed. “So be it,” he muttered. Shifting his feet to get a better stance, he grabbed the scythe with both hands and nervously spun it. He faked a swing, hoping to scare the man, but the stranger didn’t move. Shaking his head, the boy waited for a few more moments, then finally brought the scythe around and over his head at the man. However, the man’s smile widened as he simply sidestepped the scythe. The tool missed and embedded itself in the ground.

The boy was shocked for a moment, but quickly recovered. He scowled and hefted the scythe out of the ground, then swung it around himself and towards the man. However, the stranger dodged once more, this time with a backstep. The boy grimaced again, then took a deep breath. He tried to quell the frustration growing within him. After a few moments, he lunged forward and swung the scythe in another arc in front of him. There was no way the man could duck this one.

The man’s smile broke into a grin.

In the blink of an eye, the man had reached under his cloak and drawn a sword. As the scythe came swinging towards him, the man pulled the sword in front of himself and blocked the blade, spinning his sword upward to deflect the scythe over his head. As the boy’s eyes widened in shock, the man stepped forward and struck the boy’s arms with his open hand, causing the boy to drop the scythe. The hit’s momentum forced the boy down and onto his knees.

By the time the boy realized what had just happened, he felt the light tingle of steel resting against his throat. He froze, panting, realizing that he was at the stranger’s mercy. The boy closed his eyes and started whispering to his Maker.

“There’s no need for prayers, boy,” the man said from beside him. The blade moved away from his neck, and the boy gasped. The man walked around the boy, and the boy glimpsed a flash of white from beneath the man’s robe. However, the man quickly sheathed his sword and his clothes once more disappeared beneath the robe. The man tried to look at the boy’s face, but the boy simply hung his head and stared at the ground in embarrassment.

“You’re an idiot.”

The boy looked up, but the man’s face showed little emotion aside from not being hostile.

“Starting a fight with an unknown opponent, particularly with your skills - or lack thereof,” the man elaborated, “is never a good idea. It’ll get you killed in this world, and we wouldn’t want that to happen, would we?”

The boy could have sworn a spark of emotion flickered across the man’s eyes, but it disappeared when he blinked.

“I am here to speak to the owners of this farm,” the man finally explained. “Are they around?”

The boy, now regaining his composure, stood and asked, “Why d’you ask?”

“I’m here about a wanted ad I saw in town.”

The boy furrowed his eyebrows. “Well, the owners haven’t told me about a wanted ad, but we could use the help around here. C’mon, I’ll show you to the house.” With a nod of thanks from the stranger, the boy strode off over the field, being careful not to step on the harvest. The man strode next to him, though he avoided the crops with much less effort.

After a few silent moments, the boy said, “I didn’t catch your name.”

“You didn’t ask,” the man replied. “I didn’t say.”

The boy stopped and extended a hand to the man. “My name is Ryan,” the boy said. “And what’s yours, traveler?”

The man seemed to hesitate for a moment, then extended his hand and grasped the boy’s. “Godric,” the man stated. “I go by the name of Godric.”

Twenty-One Summer

Sat, 15 Sep 2012 16:33:12 -0400

by Tyler Barton

—

This summer I started writing everything
down in journals,
everything that I did.
I also took fragmented videos and little pictures
of it all.
“If it’s here here and here then it is in more places than only my mind”
My fallible memory,
My evil tendency to rewrite history,
My lack of attention paid
day to day.
So I wrote it all down and taped it and framed it and filed it and kept
It all in a bookbag.

The bookbag is on my back
as I drag myself for miles across the freeway on my fritzy motorcycle,
and I’m entering the cattleshoot on the Thirty bridge.
You know the summer.
And I’m just flying,
the wind shakes me like a baby’s rattle,
and I’ve got it all.

Now I see my rear tire blowing
and me going over the low guardrail
into the water with my whole summer in my head,
in my journals and on my hard-drive.
All my life backed up and restored,
lost in the water when I splash.
When I return to the womb of my mother.

Mind you it is past midnight
on a Wednesday night.
No one is around
and no one hears the sound of the skidding bike,
the slicing of the fender on the concrete,
the screaming,
the muffled helmet screams,
all I’ve done in my head and on my back
not saved by the helpless helmet when I smack the
dark water.
No one to find me.
No trace of me left.

I need to start making marks on earth.
I should have gone to technical school.
A carpenter could die like this and his work would show forever.

I had a good summer but it’s all gone.
and no one knows.

[untitled]

Fri, 14 Sep 2012 09:47:43 -0400

by Tyler Barton

—

Twenty one and one half
And so little I have to say.
I have eight shoes.
I can say I have compulsions,
Compulsions to hear myself speak when I think, so I write.
I can say I have a receding hair line
And have never considered suicide
But
Thank god for letting us choose.

I can say I have spent time,
Decidedly, I’ve paid for it.
I can say I have a friend in prison,
I don’t know if he deserved it.
But I can say I am scared for him.
I can say I have read some novels,
Vonnegut I like.
I can say I have a newfound spitting habit
and an old one for biting the nails on the ends of my fingers close
and a judging personality
I can say I have defenses;
I can say I have offended
on purpose and not.
I have told jokes.

I hear myself thinking and it sounds delightful.
I don’t have much to show for it.

Breeze

Wed, 12 Sep 2012 15:56:18 -0400

by Luke High

—

The leaves rustle slightly in the thick summer breeze

and every dog on the playground is just asking for one more game of fetch.

I’ve somehow found myself at the end of civilization, staring curiously down the straight path of what I once was.

What scares me is that it doesn’t stare back.

instead it stares ahead, beyond me and beyond what I’ve come to do.

Every house lining this cleanswept street holds memories.

the phones are ringing off the hook with the invitations of old friends,

and even an unwanted bicycle resurfaces, one which does not live up to its name.

It’s among these streets that I’ve found what I’m searching for, and its in the back alleys that I found fear.

A flick of the switch turns my anxiety to anticipation,

however…

However nothing.

It is these streets that I must abandon, taking only with me what wants to be taken.

As I look back on it all

it really amazes me how human it makes me feel.

The humanity of it all is exactly what I’ve come to fear and to loathe, to love and to cherish.

So for now, I’ll reach my hand out

Whatever happens to grab hold…

Well, only the future can tell what will happen.

It’s a lot to entrust.

And it’s so worth it.

High school poetry

Tue, 11 Sep 2012 23:31:00 -0400

by Tyler Barton

—

When I was seventeen I told the class who I was
in terms of from where I had come.
That was dumb.

I had been nowhere,
except home in the same town they crashed all their bikes in,
except the same roads they spilled off of their skateboards on,
except some same trees in the park they scurried up when that drunk driver veered
off the road when the daylight was broad
and the same yards with the same mailboxes they socked with passing baseball bats
accepting wasted afternoons as fliptricks on, and often falling off, their trampolines.

I didn’t think anyone was really different.

Now I come from a place where I can see
That no human can ever see the same as I.
You and me?
We are as similar as a sock and a horseshoe,
You and I, we see things eye to eye in about the way that Act 1 Claudio and Benedick do
We don’t.
I can’t.
So tell me what you’ve seen.
I will try to understand it through my own eyes.

Organized Violence

Thu, 02 Aug 2012 10:45:00 -0400

by Christian Stock

—

Mike Wallace woke up in the hospital with his jaw wired shut. His girlfriend Tammy sat next to him bleary-eyed. She shook her head in disbelief when he asked her,
“Did I win?”

“Typical Mike.” Tammy always thought her long-time boyfriend had so much more to give the world than his two fists—that there was so much more to him than violence. She got up and left the room. Finally she was starting to realize she was wrong.

8 weeks earlier.

“Mike, tell me what you think of Jayson Gamber.”

Mike always hated loaded interview questions, but they were part of fighting. They sold tickets, raised bonuses, ballooned legacies, but really all Mike wanted to do was fight.

“I think what everybody else thinks, he’s a young up and comer. Lots of talent, lots of confidence.”

“Do you want to know what he thinks of you?”

Mike shifted his massive frame in his seat, his hands draped over the arm rests.

“He thinks you’re too old. That you’ve been around for too long without a championship belt.”

Too old? Bullshit. Mike put on a smile and said,

“I’ve never known experience to be a weakness.”

Inside he brewed over the phrase “too old”. He’d been doing this professionally for ten years. He’d started out in garages, alleyways, vacant lots. He fought anyone and the crook of his nose served as evidence. He was a fighter, old or not.

“Mike, you’ve been known to finish fights with the rear-naked choke, I’ll be ringside announcing this fight with Mick Waters and Jerry DuPont, should we expect to see this from you again?”

“Well Steve, I’ll tell you that first and foremost I want to use my hands. But I do like the rear-naked choke when it’s appropriate. It’s a tough hold to lock-in because of human instincts, as animals we never want anything cutting off our air. The interesting thing about the choke is that once it’s locked in it’s almost impossible to escape, and as the offensive fighter I love that aspect of it.”

“It’s a very serious hold though Mike. Unified Mixed Martial Arts is talking about banning the move, do you have any comment on that?”

“Every submission hold in MMA is serious, but I understand their concern. I understand the violence it portrays, nobody kills another person by breaking their arm or their knee. Cutting off another person’s air supply is more often than not the means to an end much worse than tapping out. I would tell people to keep in mind that this is a sport, a violent sport, but still—a sport and I plan on abiding by its rules.”

“We’re coming to the end of the interview Mike, is there anything you’d like to say to the fans before you step in the cage with Gamber in six weeks?”

“I want the fans to keep in mind I’ve lived in darker places than Gamber has visited and that piece of me will show up when it really matters.”

***

The nurse came in with a bottle of water and pain-killers. Mike tried his best to talk,

“Excuse me nurse, could you tell me what happened during the fight?”

The nurse looked at him and shrugged her shoulders,

“I just started my shift, but let me take a look at the charts.” She picked up a clipboard and flipped through a couple pages.

“All it says, Mr. Wallace, is that you suffered repeated blows to the head. Likely to have a stage-two concussion. They plan on giving you x-rays, maybe a brain scan.”

No surprise there.

“Does it say whether I won the fight?”

“No, it doesn’t. You can see for yourself.”

She passed him the clipboard and he flipped through the pages, his hands still sore. Nothing.

“Is that why you’re here? You’re a fighter?”

“Yeah.” He passed her back the clipboard.

“You any good?”

“I’d like to think so.”

“Well, then you probably won the fight. Could I get your autograph? I don’t watch fighting—Grown men beating each other isn’t what I would call entertainment. My son is a big fan though.”

Mike nodded.

“What’s his name?”

“It’s Cameron.”

Mike struggled to grasp the pen. His knuckles were swollen and he could feel the acid built up in each joint. Arthritis was going to be a bitch.

“Thank you, Mr. Wallace. Tell you what, if I find out about your fight, I’ll let you know.”

“Thanks, can you hand me the remote?”

The television had to have something about the fight. ESPN would at least have him on the ticker tape.

4 weeks earlier.

Over the years, fighting had manifested itself in the mind of Mike Wallace as a violent meditation. A chance to get away from the immensity of the world—the only thing that mattered during a fight was right there in the cage, ring, or even the alleyway. It was his way of getting away from welfare. It was his way of getting out having his electricity cut off or having to beg for food. There was nothing else past the ropes, past the concrete, past the cage and even if there was it wouldn’t matter. If you got distracted, you got knocked out. If you let your guard down, you got hit. When you’re standing opposite someone who has their fists clenched your eyes are locked onto them. Not the ring girls, not the people cheering, or the cameras flashing. Mike brought this mentality to training. He hit the pads with a holy discipline, focusing on the pop of each punch into leather, the sweat on the nape of his neck and the spit in his mouth guard. He didn’t do promos or interviews during his training cycle. He didn’t pick up his phone, he didn’t go on the internet. He was training. Whatever it was would have to wait. When he was young and hungry all he had was fighting. Money, age, and fame couldn’t break that instinct.
“Mike, time.”

Mike wiped the sweat from his forehead and dropped his hands. His trainer Clyde Green motioned with his head toward a guy with slicked back black hair.

“Looks like there is someone here to see you.”

Mike walked to the edge of the ring, leaning on the ropes.

“Can I help you with something buddy?”

“I’m here to give you a physical exam before the fight. I called you multiple times to schedule an appointment, but I haven’t gotten a reply.”

“I already took my physical before the fight with my family doctor.”

“Yes Mr. Wallace, but a second opinion has been requested.”

Mike walked over to Clyde.

“Look I don’t know who this guy is with, but would you tell him to fuck off?”

Clyde walked over and talked with the doctor while Mike threw combinations at the heavy bag. Right jab, right jab, left hook. That was going to be a good one. Left leg kick, right kick to the body, left uppercut. Mike imagined it catching Gamber flush on the chin. He could feel victory in the darkness of his fist. He was approaching the nirvana in his training and he could smell it. He would be ready soon.

Clyde returned with the doctor in tow.

“Mike, guy says it’s in the contract. Showed it to me, the opponent is allowed to request a physical from their own picked physician.”

Mike shook his head and spit. He looked at the Doctor.

“I get it. You’re with Gamber. Alright Doc. Let’s get this over with and make sure you tell him when you’re done that I’m the healthiest thirty year-old you’ve ever seen and that he should’ve known better than pull a stunt like this.”

***

Nothing. Not even on ESPN2. Tammy hadn’t come back into the room yet. He must’ve lost to that fucking punk Jayson Gamber. It must’ve looked pretty bad if Tammy was still shook up about it. She never liked his fighting. Always thought he was made for bigger and better things. She didn’t get it. There wasn’t anything he was nearly as good at or anything that would pay as well. He could’ve woken up at four a.m. every day and rode on the back of a garbage truck to collect a salary, but it wouldn’t have paid the same that fighting did. It wouldn’t have allowed him to travel, to stay in nice hotels, to have his bill covered in restaurants. She didn’t get that he’d rather diet, train, and fight than be a working stiff. He’d seen what punching a clock had done to his father. He wasn’t going to be that. He was going to have his punches mean something more. The door opened, and in swooped a man in a suit and tie, a briefcase in his left hand he extended his right and said,

“Mr. Wallace, Greg Anderson,” Mike shook his hand.

“Are you doing okay Mr. Wallace?”

“I can’t really talk.”

“Did he really hit you that hard?”

Mike shrugged.

“Has anyone told you about the fight Mr. Wallace?”

The suit began to flip through his brief case.

“No, can you tell me about it?”

“Wait so you’re telling me you don’t remember the fight at all?”

“No.” It wasn’t anything new. Mike’s fights were often blank to his memory—A blackness that would be uncovered in dreams, sudden flashes of fists, smells and kicks, and the taste of blood.

Anderson shook his head.

“Mr. Wallace I sympathize with you, but it would help your legal case if you stayed ignorant to the happenings of the fight.”

Two weeks earlier.

Mike double checked his bag: shorts, gloves, mouth guard—the necessities.

“I still don’t understand why you’ve got to leave, you haven’t slept alone before a fight in years,” Tammy said from the bed. She was one of those women that was beautiful in moments; after a shower with the vapor still stuck to her skin, early in the morning with the sunlight streaking across her face, her eyes copper coins. Mike knew this is why he had to leave. He was betrothed to fighting and she distracted him from this purity—the serenity he needed to perform.

“You know what he did. He sent that doctor to check if I was physically fit to fight. I’ve got to be at the top of my game. I’ve got to shut him up.”

“But what do I have to do with that, Mike?”

Mike zippered his bag and slung it over his back.

“I could explain it, but it wouldn’t leave you satisfied. I’ve got to do this, for me.”

Fight night.

Mike stood in the locker room, his hands at his side, his body warm. He sat down as Clyde wrapped his hands.

“What are you thinking, Mike?”

Mike quickly pumped his left leg.

“I’m good, I’m ready to fight. I want to be in the ring.”

Clyde nodded his head.

“Good, that’s the difference. You gotta want it. You gotta want to fight,” he said quietly as he laced the tape in-between each knuckle.

“Feel good?” Clyde asked.

“Yeah the tape is great, good and tight.” Mike always had his tape tight. He loved the numbness it gave to his hands. It made him feel like he could punch holes into anything. He clenched his fists and few times and rolled his shoulders.

“Won’t be long now,” Clyde murmured. Mike used the bathroom one last time. His body was ready for combat. The day he had worked for had arrived. He would finally step across from Jayson Gamber. There would be blood.

“Here comes Mike Wallace, the thirty year-old veteran brawler. Steve you had an exclusive interview with him before the fight, what can you tell us?”

“Well, Jerry, Let me tell you something; Mike Wallace is an intense guy. A real shark in the cage. He’s known to get after it, just look how he walks to the cage, arms at his sides, eyes locked straight ahead. He was the same way in the interview. He told me that he plans on using his fists to beat Gamber, but he made it clear a submission wasn’t out of the question.”

“And here comes Jayson Gamber, the rookie sensation! Currently on a six fight winning streak. Steve, tell me why Gamber is such a dark horse in the Unified Mixed Martial Arts League?”

“He’s a young talented kid at 22 years old. He’s spent the last three years fighting over in Japan. He’s known for his antics inside and outside the ring and for being a risk taker. Gamber throws more wild punches in one night than most fighters throw in their career. You honestly never know what to expect from him. When I asked him about his game plan in our interview he said his plan was to not have a plan.”

“We’re sure to be in for some surprises tonight with these two.”

“Definitely Jerry, I can’t wait for this fight to get started, listen to the fans rocking this sold out arena.”

Mike was finally in the cage. He felt the vibrations of the crowd in the canvas and closed his eyes. He was where he wanted to be. He pushed out the noise. He pushed out everything. He was selfless. An animal under the lights. His skin suspended in the air, his mind like water. He was ready. His legs were iron, his stomach was tight, he just wanted the bell to ring. He wanted to get it started. He was ready.

“Big Dave Larson will be the referee for this match-up, does this benefit either fighter, Steve?”

“I think it benefits everyone, Jerry. Dave Larson is a ref who’s seen a lot of matches. He lets fighters fight and with his massive size he commands respect from fighters.”

“As the bell rings the two fighters enter the center of the circle, and Wallace extends his left fist as a sign of respect. Gamber steps back and shakes his head no.”

“These two are ready to rumble and I don’t know if that was Gamber’s best move. Wallace steps forward.”

Mike threw the first punch, and the next, and the one after that. He felt his knuckles bend against Gamber’s ribcage. He continued marching forward, his fists cocked in front of his face. He snapped his elbows with each punch, searching for something solid, body shot, body shot, left straight to the head, bust the nose.

“Gamber isn’t letting Wallace strike clean, but he’s going to have to do more to win the fight.”

“Gamber goes for a body kick, and Wallace catches it!”

Time stood fucking still. Mike had Jayson Gamber’s leg trapped against his body. He was going to enjoy this. He felt the muscles in his shoulder stretch as he pulled back his right fist. I am a wrecking ball. I have a heartbeat and I am unstoppable.

“Can you believe it, Steve? Jayson Gamber jumps and strikes Wallace clean across the face with his free leg, it sounded like a shot from a two-by-four!”

“They’re both on the mat Jerry, Gamber on top raining blows down upon Wallace, He’s got to do something here or Larson is going to have to stop the fight.”

Mike had been here before, before he was big enough to fight back, before he stood up for himself. It was different then, he was smaller, and his Dad had a belt. He wasn’t going to get stuck here. He wasn’t going out on his back. Not like this. He felt the punches land like meteors on his elbows and crash through his guard, smack his face, and box his ears. He had to slip one, just one and get in tight to Gamber. Wrap his arms around him and pin his cheek to Gamber’s chest for survival. He felt the punch graze wildly off his forearm and he threw himself forward.

“Did you see the shot Gamber landed on Wallace’s chin as he tried to improve position?”

“I did Steve, and I don’t know how Wallace is still holding on, that was a right hand from hell.”

“They’re in a tight mount position, Gamber on top, riding a little high and Wallace feels it, he goes for the bridge, and he’s out! Gamber shoots right away trying to catch Wallace off guard.”

Mike sprawled. Knees until he blocks, bust his head open. Bombs dropping on the back of Gamber’s fucking skull.

“Wallace is raining down knees from the sky, Gamber has to get out of there! He blocks and Wallace spins behind sinking in the legs, he’s in position for the rear-naked choke; expect him to go for it!”

Mike Wallace slipped his forearm past his opponent’s chin. He was going to lock it in. He embraced the silence in his mind. This was it, a dark eternity, a submission hold on the surface of the moon. He felt his eyes close on the moment, Gamber’s heartbeat rattling against his tightening arm. Fear is a drug that dogs not only smell, but get high off of; men are no different. Mike opened his eyes, but did not see. I am violence. I am not governed by God or society. I keep what I kill.

Mike tore off down the hallway. Nobody would tell him what he wanted to hear, not Clyde, not the lawyer, not the nurse, or even Tammy. He had to know what the fuck happened to him. What the fuck happened to Gamber? Did he win the fucking fight? He sprinted down the hallway feeling the strings of his gown bounce against his back. He felt like an experiment. He could hear people calling after him. He knew he didn’t have time. He just needed to find out what happened. The rest would work itself out. He tore down the hallways, searching for a stair-well, trying to find a complimentary computer. Hospitals had those, right? Somewhere there had to be one, or at least an unattended computer. The lobby? He pealed down the stairs, his bare feet against the grating stone. He flung the door open and tore through the lobby, past the cafeteria and straight into the complimentary computer. A kid was on it; Mike brought himself to a skidding halt, picked the kid up, chair and all, and set him down out of the way.

He punched the letters in the url and the video was in front of him. He watched himself on the screen as he slipped in the choke hold and wouldn’t let go. His eyes didn’t appear his own, they were dark and unblinking. He watched Gamber tap-out and then go limp. And he even watched as Big Dave Larson’s fist mashed his face in as an attempt to force him to let go. His hands stayed locked until he succumbed to unconsciousness from Larson’s boulder-like fists.

Mike slunk down to his knees. He rested the side of his face on the keyboard. Tears began to stream out of his eyes.

“Mr. Wallace, don’t move, we have to restrain you. You’re a danger to those around you.”

He felt the zip ties bite into his thick wrists and his body shuddered. As three men hauled Mike to his feet, arms behind his back, his head hung low, he snorted,

“I won.”

Quietly at first, and as he repeated the phrase it evolved into a scream that brought out the veins into his neck until a nurse was forced to stick him with twenty-five milligrams of valium.

***

Mike Wallace woke up in the hospital.

A continuation of assholery

Sat, 28 Jul 2012 17:57:14 -0400

by Jacob Gehman

—

Monads scratch at Lebanese thinkcrocks.
Signifying with significance unparalleled
by the signs of the lusty Queen that princes
observe unseen, every thought a Peter Pan fantasy.

Shocked by a modicum of royal elegance—
dresses swishing and top-caps tipping,
a farce of pithy facades presenting the expected.
The dragons in the basement ignored, but never forgot.

Prologue: Enter the Biopunk Dystopia (Complete, Uncensored)

Tue, 24 Jul 2012 11:14:56 -0400

by Shane M. Flear

—

October 30^th 2109 A.C.E, South Central Pennsylvania in the city of Lancaster, hereby referred to by the natives as Lysis¹; almost 6 months has passed since the vicious bioterrorist crime syndicate, La Rosa, capitalized on a coup d’état during La Virulencia ²seizing control of the Commonwealth and forcing it to secede from the state of Pennsylvania.

…A lone young man contemplates…

How did it come to this? How had this once proud Commonwealth fallen from grace and descended into a festering biological calamity? They all questioned it aimlessly and ignorantly across the news networks and in all their pointless political debates from the comforts of their cozy seats. Well I’d much rather answer those questions with a question or two of my own – why hadn’t something like this happened sooner? Of all the points in our history why did it happen at the dawn of the 22^nd century? A dawn that saw the United States’ first female and Latina American president, Eva Browning³, take the center stage although all it really was to the people was just a new face playing the same old game. Regardless, it’s irrelevant now. All that matters is what we do about it now. It has transpired and now we have to live with it and find a compromising way to adapt to this horrid change, but change never comes without pain.

It’s true that we native Lancastrians don’t call this little slice of heaven Lancaster anymore; I laugh sarcastically. It hasn’t been called that for nearly a year now, not since the days of La Virulencia washed over the city like a bioterroristic tidal wave. So why do we call it Lysis instead? For the nonscientifically inclined, lysis refers to the breaking down of a cell, often by viral, enzymic, or osmotic mechanisms that compromise its integrity. How this fits into our current predicament you ask, well I’ll take a little time to share with you the melancholy tale behind the downfall of our city; a place I called home for over 22 years. As I said before, a little over a year ago the city was host to some rather gruesome events brought upon by the ruthless bioterrorist crime syndicate known as La Rosa. At this point in time La Rosa had carved quite literally a rather violent territorial line across the Eastern coast of the U.S. making their influence and presence heavily felt in both the civil and criminal worlds. For the first time we were seeing not only society evolving with the change in times, we were seeing organized crime adorning a new face and supplementing its nefarious lifestyle with the applications of pseudosciences and unethical scientific theories utilizing them with devastating results. La Rosa wasn’t your typical run of the mill gang or mafia cadre of criminals; they transcended into something much more lethal and unprecedented. These were once bright and aspiring college students, faculty members, and proper intellectuals who overtime grew disillusioned and spiteful of the socioeconomic issues of society and the government’s misplaced loyalties and use of power for the people. Like most roots of evil, they never sprout out at first as the twisted machinations we make them out to be later in their spiraling fall to depravity and wickedness.

At the end of the first incidents of nonviolent protests and public marches launched on many municipalities made by La Rosa, Pennsylvania’s and other Eastern states’ governments had followed suit and crushed this rising collaboration of seemingly subversive Darwinian radicals. The municipalities’ victories did not bring peace, but instead brought humiliation, hardships, and bitter resentment. What started as a student movement gradually degraded into a decentralized crime syndicate that valued Darwinian extremes and that would go to the most radical of measures to see their manifesto come to fruition. Not much is known about their earlier involvements and where or how exactly they received the finances to fund their anarchic organization, however, many indicators point to their various illicit activities as being the main sources of income. Though their name was derived from Lancaster being known at one point as the Spanish Rose, not every aspect of their organization was based on Spanish dialect and culture. In fact, most of their members consisted of many mixed ethnicities and racial descent, but predominantly most were Spanish or Caucasian. This fusion of Spanish and Caucasian ethnicities and cultures led to further genetic diversity within the gene pools and cultural tolerances of Lysis which over time led to Spanglish being one of the most widely and unofficially used languages within the city by the 22^nd century despite much protest and dispute. Getting back to my point, La Rosa being strong advocates for Darwinian Theory launched numerous bioterrorist attacks along the Eastern Coast in attempts to destabilize municipalities and enact cruelly fashioned manifestos that called for natural selection and survival of the fittest ways of life in these self-proclaimed territories. Their vile methods and complete disregard for collateral damage in face of a commitment to their objectives no matter the cost were only further feared when La Virulencia in the summer of 2109 came to pass…the summer that ultimately led to the transformation of Lancaster into Lysis – the now christened Biopunk dystopia.

From what I can remember most of that fucked up summer in summation was the dreadful sensation of hot and sweaty lurking death; it felt like a part of our humanity was ripped from us that night. Global temperatures were already in steady inclination with most summer days being as hot as 92°F with humidity levels ranging to an average 50% and showed no signs of decline. La Rosa had deep pockets in many of Lancaster’s inner and outer workings both legitimate and illicit. This corruption was essential for them to get their hands on valuable human and technological assets in order for them to make a final push to claim the municipality. In wake of this they systematically planned to spur the greatest selective pressure on the human genome in Lancaster’s populace through the use of a mutagenic protozoan parasite arising from transgenic, or genetically modified, Plasmodium falciparum (lethal species of malaria). A secondary biological agent was also manufactured for this ghastly attack that came in the form of a transgenic strain of an arbovirus called Aedes aegypti; otherwise known as yellow fever. This transgenic form of malaria would be capable of not only causing severeness of cell lysis, coma and death, but was further genetically tampered with to cause normocytic anemia and sickle-cell anemia on the most lethal of levels. Subjects infected with this form of normocytic anemia would later experience acute blood loss and hemorrhage or exhibit chronically thorough low volume blood loss, excessive blood cell destruction (hemolysis), and lack of oxygen in organs (hypoxia). As for subjects infected with the transgenic form of sickle-cell anemia, they would experience sickling of their blood cells brought on by a mutation in their hemoglobin gene. Though the aforementioned symptoms may seem miserably bleak and grievous, they unfortunately would be overlooked by the symptoms caused by the transgenic strain of yellow fever. Subjects infected by this hellish arbovirus would experience lethal hemorrhagic fevers, a yellowish pigmentation disorder of the skin (jaundice), and cardiovascular shock and multi organ failure (hypovolemic shock). The only good news about this RNA virus was that survivors of the infection would have a life-long immunity; I being an extremely rare case of living proof to that testament. How they came into possession of this malicious transgenic form of a malaria parasite and arbovirus could only have been explained by their vast connections with anonymous biohackers⁴ (or “wetware hackers”) that had grown more prominent in Lysis; the sort looking for the highest bidder and caring less about the buyers’ intentions and implications. Once they acquired the virulent payload from their biohacker contacts they made further preparations to ensure dispersal of the biological weapons would no doubt engulf the entire city and quite possibly the surrounding boroughs and counties.

Distribution of the viral and parasitic onslaught would come in multiple phases through multiple means of dispersion. First and foremost, La Rosa planned ahead for many contingencies and setbacks by developing an attenuated vaccine that would be mass produced and distributed among every member along the Eastern coast to be administered hours before the attack. The attenuated vaccine was essentially created by reducing the virulence of the pathogen, but still keeping it viable (or “live”) with the capabilities to reproduce, but at a very slow pace. However, even with all of these precautions, they would not walk this fine line untouched as they would later discover that some of the attenuated vaccines would undergo secondary mutations causing a reversion to virulence. Furthermore, La Rosa had a biological failsafe engineered into the Aedes aegypti specimens constituting that every one of them would be sterile and genetically programmed to die off once winter would set in. With that said La Rosa initiated the dispersion of the arbovirus by releasing hundreds of infected Aedes aegypti mosquitoes into the city and surrounding boroughs/counties. Pennsylvania had transpired into a sub-tropical climate during the summer making the little buggers feel right at home. Aedes aegypti truly were the perfect vectors to disperse the virus as they were attracted to chemical compounds that are emitted by mammals; those compounds being ammonia, carbon dioxide, lactic acid, and octenol. Additionally, La Rosa operatives hit every water treatment facility in and around Lysis with viral overloads making sure that the city’s water would be contaminated with the arbovirus which led to Lysis’ water supply being completely compromised and for future consequences to arise. The Plasmodium falciparum specimens were dispersed in a multitude of ingenious fashions throughout the city’s populace. Yet again arthropod vectors were utilized to disperse the initial wave of the transgenic parasitic organisms by means of scores of anopheles mosquitoes being released into the environment. This wave was then supplemented by the vast chain of fast food restaurants’ beef supplies being systematically infected with the same species of malaria parasites only this strain was designed to be semi-resistant to denaturation by chemical and physical agents allowing for it to survive being cooked within the beef much like prions. The parasites would be ingested unknowingly by the populace which in time would allow the multiplication of Plasmodium falciparum within the hosts’ red blood cells resulting in the malaria disease. All of the pieces were being set in motion; the problem was…nobody knew they were inadvertently being placed on the board as well.

The outbreak occurred in the late hours of late May in the summer of 2109. Proliferating amongst the unsuspecting public the biological weapons metamorphosed them into a state of living death and lethargy. La Rosa had tried to spur natural selection and a next stage in human evolution on the citizens through a diabolically harsh selective process. This vile act couldn’t even be viewed as artificial selection though; there weren’t any favored specific traits that could arise from this human made heinous manifestation. I never was much of a religious person, but I’d have to say that night made me feel the closest to anything resembling a Hell as I’d ever felt; we all probably felt that way. I remember people just collapsing in the streets, on porches, and lawns bleeding profusely from every orifice in their bodies; their eyes staring into mine asking for help when I knew that there was nothing I could do. I witnessed mothers committing siblicide before they took their own lives knowing what would happen if they were to submit to La Rosa occupation. I encountered a distraught single mother, crawling on her knees, blood dripping from her face, and she offered up her newborn child towards me as I stumbled down the pavement in a morosely indifferent state. She must’ve mistaken me for one of the other civilians fleeing from the city. She wept so incoherently as she begged me to take her child away from the city; to give her daughter a chance to live. I couldn’t…I wasn’t finished with what needed to be done in this city…my home. So I was left with looking that helpless mother in the eyes and lying to her face before turning my back on them and pushing on into madness. The last I remember is that poor women being dragged into the street, her child stripped from her blood stained arms, and doused with kerosene before being lit on fire. The baby’s cries were barbarically snuffed out under the crushing weight of a boot. For the first time I wept blood that night, most likely from the infection of the arbovirus, but a part of me knew it was from being a spectator to the horror unfolding before my eyes. I still am in conflict with my conscience over those events knowing that ultimately my decision unwillingly got that mother and her child killed; there really was no turning back for me after that. I consciously turned my back on someone who needed my help that night so selfishly and mercilessly without a second thought or glance; I knew what their fate would be and I coldly left them to it and sadly they would not be the last. I had embraced such a disillusioned viewpoint from that night on; this is life and survival is your own responsibility. I now realized the grim reality of what kind of person I’d have to evolve into in order to adapt and survive this horrid transition; my morals and more importantly my overall embodying nature would be challenged as I traversed down this blurred and detached path into apathy and oblivion. They say La Virulencia was reminiscent to the French Revolution⁵, but honestly the only thing the two shared in common was the blood, viscera and excrement of the corpses that filled the streets. La Rosa’s true animalistic nature was revealed to the public’s eye that night as they dragged defenseless women out of homes to be passed around and raped multiple times before eventually being mutilated beyond recognition and finally killed once they’d had their sick fun. Their ableistic and eugenic beliefs were exhibited in the most brutal of ways as they hunted down people who they deemed unfit to exist in their image of society. Disabled and the genetically inferior people were thrown from apartment buildings and roof tops; some men and women were even castrated cruelly and left to bleed out in pools of their own blood and bodily fluids. There were even unspeakable cases of obese individuals being fatally force fed until their bowels gave way and of pregnant women having their breasts severed off so that they would be incapable of breast feeding their infants who would be sealed up in their homes and left to die of starvation. Things got so fuck’n out of hand that some members resorted to further extremes such as cannibalism and other humiliating terror tactics that I dare not confess to you. These weren’t humans…no, these were vicious animals…monsters driven by primal urges and instincts that humanity thought they had left behind as they evolved as a species, but there was no denying after that night that the primeval beast still remained inside of us.

By the time martial law had been declared all 7 of the city council members were dead; executed summarily by La Rosa while Mayor Hector Juliantte, who was in league with La Rosa from the beginning, would live on to ascend as the self-proclaimed dictator of Lysis and usher in an age of ultranationalistic centralization for the bioterroristic separatist faction. Their corpses were hung by the necks from the courthouse and their torsos were disemboweled. All 147 sworn officers of the Lancaster Bureau of Police were killed within hours succumbing to the biological agents as they put up a last ditch effort to ensure the safety of the civilians as they attempted to flee the city amid the chaos. Seeing that the civilian government had failed to function effectively, President Browning issued the imposition of military rule by military authorities over the state of Pennsylvania. However, with the U.S. armed forces tied up in the current controversial H₂0 Conflict ⁶over in the East, the military was stretched too thin to respond in force. La Rosa counted on this and within the next several hours other municipalities and Eastern states experienced the same sort of epidemics and orchestrated coup d’états in the similar make and design as Lancaster. La Rosa dug their tainted boots in deep among the entrails and putrefying corpses within Lancaster and dared the U.S. military to intervene and come in after them. So they did, sending in minimal local National Guard units…only to be met with day after day of ferocious biological warfare on an epic scale, hulking ironclad golem-like biological weapons arising from the confines of the Lancaster County Prison, and other horrific sights that haunted the survivors who managed to pull out alive. The poor bastards never stood a chance. The National Guardsmen had been sent in to provide aid and relief efforts and evacuate the civilians, but soon realized that they were highly ill-advised and unprepared for what they stepped into. In and out within the day, they said. Their weapons and tactics no match for our military might, they shrugged. Predicted moderate to low resistance within the city. Enemy morale expected to be at an all-time low upon arrival, they arrogantly gloated. They couldn’t have been more wrong; welcome to Lysis my fellow countrymen and women, ha. Shortly after the last days of the skirmishes with the National Guard came to a distinctive bloody halt, La Rosa, through the extension of their new de facto ruler, Mayor Juliantte declared the newfound christened Lysis’ secession from the state of Pennsylvania and further vowed that Lysis would be reformed into an independent nation under science and a ruling body for life. The U.S. government grudgingly had no choice at the moment but to accept the terms, but they would refuse to officially recognize Lysis as an independent nation. In the eyes of them and the U.S. citizens, Lysis would only ever be viewed as a Biopunk dystopia under the ruthless dictatorship of Hector Juliantte who curiously kept his title of Mayor. President Browning was therefore left with no other alternative but to call for the quarantine of Lysis resulting in massive barricades interconnecting with each other to pretty much surround and form a perimeter around the outer parts of the city limits and affected regions. Containing the incident was the only thing important on their minds at that point even if it meant sealing in good people who were unable to get out…they never gave em a chance…and this betrayal only strengthened the survivors’ trust in Juliantte’s regime.

In the aftermath of La Virulencia, Lysis’ environment and climate underwent monumental changes and further degradation. Most of us who remained here are in one way or the other scarred mentally or physically; in my case both. Times are looking pretty grim these days and everyone is trying to hold on to every last bit of sanity that’s left of them. This city has transformed before the world’s eyes and worse yet, the people have descended along with it as a last resort effort in an attempt to adapt to this strange and alien-like environment. No one dared admit it, but Lancaster had undergone a horrific transformation into this Biopunk dystopia and taken on a new name – Lysis; it sent chills up the backs of the civilized world. The air quality had become thick with carbon emissions and photo chemical smog on hazardous levels from the buildings and various chemical elements that burned unchecked for weeks covering the lower atmosphere in daily ominous barely breathable fog. The days were now filled with howling winds and dust storms occasionally or heavy acidic rainfalls strong enough to remove paint from vehicles or produce minor burns on a person’s skin. The sun rarely makes appearances any more on most days being unable to penetrate through the thick hazy layers of sinister cloud formations. In response to this unprecedented climate change many of the tree species and photosynthetic life forms soon began to wither and die off leading to further miserable daily conditions. Oxygen levels decreased rapidly and many other native species of birds, mammals, and indigenous species perished, unable to adapt to these harsh anthropogenic influenced effects. New species and mutant variations of fungi species started to arise along with flourishing species of detrivores and parasites. The worst came in the form of emergent mutant variations of non-indigenous arthropod species such as Scolopendra gigantea (Peruvian giant yellow leg centipede) that had mandibles capable of penetrating skin and inducing anaphylactic shock. This mutant form of centipede was also capable of producing poisonous liquid secretions and more concerning it could release hydrogen cyanide gas into the air as a defensive mechanism. This almond-like smelling poisonous gas would prove to be a major issue down the line as that particular centipede species would begin to flourish and become an invasive part of Lysis’ natural ecosystem. How naïve we all were to think only the environment and city would be affected and undergo a transformation by what had occurred.

To adapt to this strange and harsh alien-like environment we would be required to wear special gas masks equipped with advanced filtration and rebreather systematics to protect our lungs from succumbing to the crude elements and poisonous air quality in certain regions of the city. These full facial masks also bore the distinguishable illuminating yellow eye goggle pieces that would be further used to coin the phrase “bug eyes” as a stereotype and slur made by non-natives against the inhabitants of Lysis. These masks would soon grow to be a pivotal part of Lysis’ social class structure and would take on different variations and make throughout its society. They would even grow on us to be used as distinguishable and defining means to differentiate between our respective male and female sexes. An unusual sort of sexual dimorphism if you will; the males tending to adorn full facial masks while the females more often would adorn masks only covering their nasal and lower region of their faces leaving their eyes exposed. The Plasmodium falciparum and Aedes aegypti species did eventually die off in Lysis, but their effects remained and would cause further unexpected genetic mutations to the populace. Our bodies slowly and slightly underwent subtle mutations as a result of being pressured to adapt to these new hardships. Most of the inhabitants displayed slight etiolation (slight skin whitening) and paleness due to the growing lack of sunlight and the after effects of surviving normocytic anemia. The survivors of the outbreak all started to display the same phenotypical characteristic of a distinctive red color in their hair follicles. Most displayed a red color similar to that of Japanese maple leaves in fall bloom while others displayed a more vibrant and burgundy red color. The explanation for this phenomenon was that subjects who came into contact with the water supply, whether by showering, drinking, or swimming; were exposed to the transgenic yellow fever arbovirus. The arbovirus overtime incubated within the hosts’ bodies until miraculously their immune systems were able to develop antibodies to fight off or coexist with the virus, however, as a result the hosts would lose the ability to produce the dark pigment eumelanin and therefore only be able to produce excessive levels of the reddish pigment pheomelanin. Many people were left to suffer from sickle-cell anemia and more costly from hypoxia. The individuals suffering from the hypoxia-like symptoms would require using the rebreather masks for the rest of their lives and furthermore would need a constant supply of artificial oxygen in order to sustain their bodily functions. The more eminent mutations were later seen in the second generation when the first offspring were born in Lysis. They all displayed the common phenotypical traits of burgundy red hair and paleness of skin color; however, more shockingly the offspring displayed a dominant genotypical trait of chronic hypoxia. It really showed that we were on the path of transcendence when the children of our city were being born and the first breathe they were taking was through an outfitted rebreather mask that would be a defining part of their lives and our future.

Now that I look back on all of this, through this horrible situation that should not exist, I think I was too quick to judge and denounce what had transpired as an act of natural selection. I feel it was in order to set myself a part from the other affected people, but there was no denying it now. My hair now shared the same Japanese maple red color; my skin had grown a paler white; I now hid my scarred face behind a mask that metaphorically and physically made me bereft of any sign of empathy or emotional expression. I had now found myself shackled to a pretense of a life that I never intended to embrace, but it was becoming clear that the longer I kept this act up, the more it would consume me until I’d become the thing I only ever pretended to be. It was always thought that natural selection was the gradual non-random process by which biological traits became either more or less common in a population as a function of differential reproduction of their bearers. With that in mind, La Rosa had sadly but true succeeded in bringing their manifesto to fruition. They would all grow to fear us and the vile Biopunk lifestyle we would embrace with open arms in order to adapt and survive. What the civilized society feared more than anything was that overtime this process would result in our population specializing for particular ecological niches and would therefore result in the emergence of a new species offshoot of the Homo sapiens sapiens evolutionary pattern. To admit that there was the slightest notion of the human species undergoing an acute mutation and essentially evolving a part due to the anthropogenic effects of humanity’s own doing was frightening to the public. This fear mongering didn’t help matters needless to say and all it did was fuel further prejudices between us and them while Hector fed on this ignorance to spread his ultranationalistic propaganda to the people of Lysis until they actually bought into the whole song and dance.

So…now you know why we call it Lysis, regrettably. I never wanted any of this, but I’d be a fool and a liar to say that this wasn’t my decision to stay. In the end it was my choice alone that influenced me to remain here in this human made limbo; I just couldn’t leave my home. This dangerous pretense that I play has made me come to the conclusion that my vendetta may claim my life in the climax of things. To whatever end my actions and decisions bring me to, I will never falter until the monsters responsible for my family’s brutal murder two years ago are brought to justice. How far am I willing to go to avenge the ones that I loved and whom were savagely ripped away from my life as much as the flesh from my face? If I live long enough, maybe…maybe I’ll get around to telling that story, ha ha.

…Almost 6 months have passed since that horrendous incident took place…

The young man, who now moonlights by the alias of Maverick “Mav” Fleur, continues his long walk down Gallery Row in the Arts District ⁷of Lysis towards his precarious destination. Another chilly and heavy downpour of acidic rain awaits his night as he takes in the sights and surreal surroundings of the Biopunk dystopia; he further recollects. In a mere 6 months’ time Juliantte’s regime had ascended from a blood choked and broken city of disease and emergent famine into a potential military superpower that had twisted the foundations of fascism and science so tightly as if it were manifesting itself as a double helix; spiraling so paradoxically towards oblivion and brutality. Hector had resolved the people’s pathos and riled them into zealous nationalism that expressed extremist support for their newfound nation’s scientifically fascist ideals. In their desperation to cling to survival or the relevant chance of any hope of stability for their affected bodies, they willing gave onto him unwavering authoritarian powers that would only further lead the people of Lysis towards a transhumanistic system of belief. It didn’t take long after that before all the warring signs of ultranationalism took its hold over Lysis and more importantly its people. Those signs included a long list about the length of my arm such as efforts toward reduction or stoppage of immigration, expulsion and or oppression of non-native populations within the nation or its territories, demagoguery of leadership, emotionalism, fomenting talk of presumed, real, or imagined enemies, predicting the existence of threats to the survival of the native, dominant or otherwise idealized national ethnicity or population group, instigation or extremist reaction to crack-down policies in law enforcement, efforts to limit international trade through tariffs, tight control over businesses and population, militarism, and lastly propaganda.

And then there was the other misinformed trade-off that they had to accept and submit to; at least the women had to for that matter. It was like one of those dirty little secrets that nobody ever openly talked about behind the confines of Lysis that only we knew while the rest of the world turned a blind eye to. I’m of course talking about the treatment of the women in Lysis. They found themselves once again regarded as second-class citizens and fell prey to being systematically discriminated against within the state. Despite their nominal status as a citizen or legal resident of Lysis, they had limited legal rights, civil rights and economic opportunities, and were often subject to mistreatment or neglect at the hands of their putative superiors. The worse form of this exploitation came in the form ofOogenesis slavery, which is now well known on the streets as Ovum snatching. Young females ranging from 13-25 years of age are kidnapped, locked up, and used for the sole purpose to harvest their matured eggs or ova which measure between 100 and 200 um in diameter making them typically visible to the naked eye without the aid of a microscope. The ova are then kept in stasis until being sold on the black market to biotech corporations or local biohackers willing to pay handsomely so that they can conduct their little unethical scientific endeavors. To be a woman in Lysis meant you’d have to choose between two simple, yet harshly grim options – you were either gonna be the strong motherfucka’ who was gonna eat or you were gonna be the weak and poor motherfucka’ who was gonna get ate; there really was no in between. This classic yet extreme example of survival of the fittest outlook within the female sex of Lysis coalesced itself into yielding some of the world’s most prominent and vigorous specimens. However, these cruel and harsh selective pressures did not come without detrimental side effects. Many of these hardened female survivors suffered and endured on to develop strong feminist personalities and attitudes while silently concealing their burning hatred for the opposite sex. Many others also suffered from various psychological and eating disorders such as night terrors, post-traumatic stress, and bulimia. Needless to say, this didn’t bode well for the male to female domestic relationship in Lysis. Majority of the men of Lysis in retrospect displayed characteristics of chauvinism and in some cases there were individuals that displayed misogyny. For all accounts love was lost and all that remained was the primal urge to reproduce and pass on genes within the population. Copulation was now more of a mutual business exchange between partners to ensure the survival of the species in Lysis; it was seen as a civic duty for the men to mate with the more fit women in the population whether by business exchanges or by force…I would never comply with this aspect of life in Lysis.

I kept thinking to myself, six months…six long drawn fuck’n months was all that had gone by and Hector was able to capitalize on every day of those six months. It was rather quite fascinating at just how quick and efficiently he had built the foundation of Lysis out of all the chaos and instability. He promised to make a civilization into one capable of surviving any disaster and crushing any opposition. The man was as manipulative as they came and he certainly knew how to play on peoples’ emotions and morale. He saw the filtration masks that the people of Lysis wore not as symbols of shame, but as symbols of the pride of emerging successfully from months of struggle and hardships. Lysis’ economy began to pick up once Juliantte created a black market route with biotech companies and biohackers the world over. With the threat of mass starvation no longer a problem, Hector didn’t concern himself with the quality of life for the ordinary citizen. From that point forward massive resources were poured into forging the original La Rosa crime syndicate forces into a fearsome army and that was precisely what the man did in those short 6 months. He ushered in a new industrial and military buildup as hundreds of women and men from the working class were shanghaied into service to slave day and night in various shifts allowing for a 24/7 work force to expedite the arms race that fueled the war machine of Lysis. The foundries spit out all sorts of exotic and experimental weaponry and machinery of biological warfare on a daily basis. At the continued pace that he was pushing for, it wouldn’t be long before the number of tanks and weapons being stock piled would outnumber the amount of people being able to wield them. With all of this activity bearing down within its own land, you’d think somewhere along the line that there would’ve been an intervention from the U.S. government…anything? What it came down to is that I think there was no response to the military buildup because they saw this whole isolated incident as an experiment. Lysis represented the uncanny future of biological weaponry and transhumanistic warfare unbound by ethics, religion, and petty morality…and more importantly a future excuse to justify the use of the U.S. military. Lysis would most likely end up playing the patsy and scapegoat for the U.S. government once they’d finish up their plans with the H₂O Conflict. After all, the military needed an enemy to fight to justify its continued flow of defense contracts and ability to promote employment within the military and not to mention the ability to learn and engineer their own biological weaponry based off of the experimental prototypes leaking out of Lysis. Without one, they couldn’t spend money and get to test out all of their little toys; a cynical, but sad truth.

I now find myself asking - do I trust humankind to save itself? The truth is, I don’t know and certainly stand fast to say that I align myself to no one country, religion, or governmental power; I now live to serve myself and myself alone. After everything I’ve seen, all the fighting, and the chaos around me, I only know what I want to believe; somehow, human decency will triumph one day long after I fade from existence. These past few months, I faced many life-threatening situations. I could have given up many times and fell a victim like so many around me, but my will to survive, to uncover the whereabouts of my family’s killers, forced me to keep on going and hope perhaps that I’ll overcome all of this horror and live on to wishfully start a family of my own. Most of the time, I try to keep my values in mind, knowing my actions do not have to serve to harm others. I hold on to my humanity even though I know subtly that I am transcending a part from it; resisting the urge to abuse power or resources in order to meet my goals in life. And in the end, I know that I’ll get the job done even if it claims my life; I will survive this nightmarish limbo. Ordinary men and women will have to decide together what course humankind should take. The lot of people who, time and time again, have picked and chosen the future in highly practical ways – slowing change when it is negative, speeding it up when it’s good. However, can they do it again in this uncertain era? I just don’t know…

The watch read 9:45p.m as Mav pulled back his trench coat’s left sleeve. He shrugged it off and continued down the blood stained side walk of N. Prince St. past the old Pennsylvania College of Science & Art Technology; his old college before it got ransacked for supplies. He was adorned in the usual attire and fashion that most men of Lysis adopted. His lanky and gaunt physique was clothed entirely first hand by a gray full body airtight biohazard undergarment that zipped up from the back all the way to the top of his head, leaving only the front of his face exposed. Over top of this he was dressed in a slim fitting 3-piece suit consisting of a holographic green buttoned up vest; a small sized white sateen dress shirt; a simple black neck tie; a simple black pair of dress pants tucked just below his knees into black shin high leather combat boots; and all was complemented by a custom fitted black blazer dress coat that was buttoned part way. His pants were held in place by a black leather belt and a silvery lustered belt buckle that was in the design of a frog in a sitting stance. The final layer worn over all of this was a yet again slim fitted black knee length trench coat made of multilayer carbon fiber fabric; chemically treated to protect from extreme temperatures, water proofed and difficult to burn with acid or fire. The coat had adjustable buckles at the cuffs; had a double breasted button front closure; shoulder epaulets; a hook-and-bar-closure at the neck, and slash pockets. His long slender hands and fingers were concealed by flexible tight fitting combat gloves made from Kevlar and goat leather; they were padded well at the knuckles with reinforced carbon fabrics capable of withstanding substantial pounding force. However, the most defining asset he wore was the emotionless full facial filtration rebreather mask. The mask itself had more of an insect-like design to it, especially the distinctive protruding cylindrical eye pieces extending outward from sockets of the mask. The end lenses of the eye pieces gave off a luminescent green color, although the colors tended to differ between the user’s specified preference. The mask was held in place by 3 straps that interconnected at the back of the head that could be adjusted for just the right comfortable fit. Mav’s rebreather mask was more simplistic as it did not require a continuous supply of artificial oxygen via a hose attachment from the side of the input filter. Instead his relied on refillable cylindrical cartridges that could be screwed on and off at the cheek region of the rebreather and which would light up with blinking red LEDs once the O₂supply was depleted. To top things all off he kept the upper portion of his head covered from acid rain and chemical residue with a small black fedora style hat; sometimes he wore other styles of hats such as a bollard hat. He checked his watch again…9:48 p.m. shit, I gotta get mov’n.

The streets looked surreal as ever; like an ominous painting in which the artist only had the melancholy colors of black, gray, and white to work with, blending and shading them to the best of his or her ability but ultimately only gave rise to a morbid mosaic…horribly come to life. Dead trees and ancient telephone poles were covered by hundreds of parasitic and bioluminescent fungi that lit up the street ways and inner city with magnificent irradiating colors of green. Most of these species of fungi were transgenic mutants of Pmellus stipticus, yet again another product of local biohackers looking for a secondary means of lighting in Lysis. The dense overlapping clusters of yellowish-orange fresh fruit bodies of the fungi were kidney or clamshell-shaped, convex to roughly flat, with dimensions of 1.2 to 3.2 cm by 1.2 to 2.5 cm. The edges of the caps were scalloped with small rounded teeth and curved slightly inward. They all produced the beautiful green light by the action of oxidative enzymes known as luciferases, which produce light by oxidizing a pigment called luciferin. During the early days of Lysis’ inauguration there was an emergent famine that struck the lower class and led to many of them experimenting with the exotic fungi in hopes of finding a reliable food source…they were gravely mistaken. While not lethal, consuming the P. stipticus mushroom led to severe cramps and vomiting as unbeknownst to them it was a violent purgative. Many casualties resulted as most of the people ingesting these mushrooms were already malnourished to begin with and hence did not have the strength to recuperate from such gastrointestinal stress.

Mav continued his fast paced walk through the downpour observing his surroundings thoroughly. A multitude of ultranationalistic banners and flags adorned the sides of the buildings and assorted businesses he passed by. They all bore the black and white multilayered trappings of Juliantte’s regime that he had based off of the Aedes aegypti mosquito’s exoskeletal color scheme. Most had the recurrent metaphoric symbol⁸ of an outstretched hand with an A. aegypti mosquito taking a blood meal from the exposed vein of the hand’s wrist. The propaganda didn’t end there. Large monitors, the size of some of the buildings themselves, reached above the haze continuously spouting the menacing image of Hector Juliantte going into his usual tyrannical speeches in such a relaxed manner as if all was well. These prerecorded transmissions went on for hours without end most days within the inner city unless interrupted by emergency broadcasts made to the nation. Newer editions to Lysis’ propaganda littered streets were big eye-popping monuments and sculptures dedicated to nothing more than spreading Lysisian⁹ superiority and dominance. One monument was the imposing and oppressive visage of Juliantte in full military attire and rebreather mask stepping over top of the skulls and skeletal remains of humans. In his right hand he clutched an ornamental staff that was in the shape of a DNA double helix strand unwinding and in his left he held a semiautomatic pistol aimed at an obese man and woman on their knees praying; their crutches lying at their sides. The double helix strand was formed out of centipedes and the pieces of hydrogen bonds breaking apart were transforming into mosquitoes that took flight while the bottom of the staff itself took on the appearance of a hypodermic needle being injected into the skeletal remains. The sculpture’s craftsmanship aside was phenomenal, but its overall conveying message was so warped and depraved. Mav took a quick glance at another sculpture out of pure artistic curiosity. This one, placed in the middle of an intersection, was by far more brutal and sickening to appreciate as a work of art. It displayed the vulgar act of La Rosa secret police ¹⁰savagely murdering defenseless women and children. One of the women in the sculpture was being stepped on as she appeared to be asphyxiating; her hands reaching up at her throat, no her oxygen hose that was severed. Another La Rosa thug was ripping off the rebreather mask of a child while simultaneously striking its mother to the ground with a rifle butt. This particular sculpture had an inscription on it reading In Lysis, only the STRONG survives and the WEAK asphyxiate. Mav didn’t bother to read the rest nor take in any more sights; it was only putting his current state of mind in conflict with his objective. He had to remain vigilant; he had to remain detached and indifferent…sever all emotion.

A few more blocks down he encountered something that caught his attention. To the right of him hiding near an alley way was a young mother holding a small child. Upon closer inspection he could see that the little girl had one of the new implanted rebreather systems concealed in her chest cavity; the infant was probably no more than 5 months old. These rare rebreather systems were only seen being used by the latest offspring in Lysis. The system activated in the presence of airborne toxins such as aerosol poisons, rendering them ineffective. It cannot reduce damage from airborne radioactive contaminants or particle energy effects, however, the implanted rebreather could help facilitate the O₂supply from the user’s side canisters. The rebreather’s core components are implanted in the primary bronchi, where the lungs join the trachea. The device is essentially a crude combination of nanomesh filter and a closed-circuit rebreather, which recycles and cleanses indrawn breathes before passing them on to the lungs. In addition, chemical exchange reactants injected into the alveoli assist in the process of blood oxygenation, enabling the user to resist exhaustion from extended physical efforts, such as sprinting. These emerging individuals, Homo sapiens lysibus¹¹, were what the civilized societies feared of leaking out of Lysis; a genesis that in their minds should not be allowed to exist. The mother was in the middle of breast feeding the baby via a suction tubule running from her covered left breast down into the infant’s half facial rebreather mask’s input hub at the front of the mouth region. Mav’s presence must have startled her as she reacted abruptly by clutching her infant; her exposed eyes widened out of fear. Mav slowly turned and knelt down arm’s length away from her and calmly spoke, “Relax ma’am…I’m just passing through; I’m not gonna hurt you or your child”. The mother didn’t reply, but he could see that she was in a complete state of malaise and malnourishment that made him find it a wonder that she was even able to garner the strength to breast feed her child still; perhaps a mother’s love and will to sacrifice for her child’s sake was one of a woman’s remaining strengths in Lysis. He reached into one of his side slash pockets from inside his trench coat searching about. Finally he pulled out a decent sized roll of money and handed it over to the ever more startled mother while speaking in a more raspy voice, “You didn’t get this from me”. At first he thought the reason for her even more regressive movement was that she caught a glimpse of one of his sidearms holstered to the side of his hip, but soon realized that her eyes were looking past his left shoulder; somebody else was watching.

Mav swung around smoothly placing his left hand, his faster hand, close to his left holster while keeping his right close by his mask. It was just another male bystander taking notice, but Mav wasn’t taking any chances with him; the guy looked like he was up to no good. “What the fuck you looking at bicho ojos¹²?” Mav sternly said showing no courtesy to the likes of this man who remained still. Before anymore words could be hurled, a rowdy barrage of ungodly barking and shouting bounced off the buildings echoing its way up to them. The baby began to bawl and make an inhuman crying sound through her filtration vents at the hearing of the approaching sounds. The bystander blurted out, “Perros monstruosos¹³,” before scurrying off into the foggy streets. Mav turned to check on the mother, but she’d already taken off in a hurry. You’re welcome…hmm, now what? More distractions? The noises kept getting louder the more he walked down the street, pretty soon he’d be walking right into whatever was making them. And so he did, but it was much worse than what he’d expected.

Before he could continue on his way, he’d inadvertently walked into a squad of La Rosa secret police who’d captured a handful of dissidents, or so that’s what they made them out to be. To Mav, they all looked more like protestors from the working class by the look of their more rugged and shabby appearance. Most of them were draped in excess carbon fabrics that they’d probably taken from the foundries they worked at and the filtration masks they wore were obviously second rate hand me downs. There were at least five men and five women and what appeared to be a young teenage couple; now that was an interesting sight. The La Rosa thugs had them all pinned against a wall across the street from where Mav was standing with their faces against it and their hands bound. Then there was that awful racket of alarming barking again, but this time Mav could finally see what was making it. There were three of them, three large sized pit bulls held in place by three chains that connected into a single leash which was held tightly by a handler. All three burly dogs wore customized filtration masks that covered the dogs’ nasal, ocular, and upper palate regions while leaving the lower jaw exposed for the ability to pant and further enable the use of their jaws for biting and eating. However, what was most intriguing was that these dogs exhibited bioluminescence much in the same manner as the local fungi. The only difference was that their bioluminescence was a more reddish color, giving them more of a fearsome hellhound-like appearance; the red glow of their eye pieces on their filtration masks only increased people’s fear of them. The truth of it though was that these transgenic forms of pit bull were being experimented with by biohackers and geneticists months before the formation of Lysis, but it wasn’t until quite recently that they all got to see the young adult versions roaming the streets.

Without hesitation six of the La Rosa thugs leveled their submachine guns to the back of the heads of the captives and opened fire in one continuous stream of bullets until only the teenage couple remained, who spoke to each other trying to reassure themselves that everything was gonna be alright when they knew that it wasn’t. The corpses were doused with kerosene and lit on fire even as fresh blood still seeped out of their open wounds mixing with the acid rain. The young teenage girl turned her head in Mav’s direction and gave him this look like she could peer through his mask and began to weep as she shook her head slowly in dismay. I’m so sorry, but I can’t interfere. The teenage boy continued to talk her through it, but it was to no avail; their turn had come. One of the La Rosa thugs dressed in their trade mark suit and tie clothing walked up to the girl and pistol whipped her across the face, cleanly knocking off her filtration mask into the blaze of fiery corpses. Her nose began to bleed down the front of her mouth and neck while her tears clung more tightly to her cheeks before being pushed along by the rain. She was turned around violently and made to face the La Rosa thug who knelt down to her level. She began to choke on the arid and hazy fumes that caressed her pale face and short cut burgundy red hair. She unexpectedly muttered something to the teenage boy and then spit up a vulgar mix of blood and saliva into the mask of the La Rosa thug…she’s brave, but ultimately foolish. In retaliation he shoved the pistol in her mouth and pulled the trigger, all in one motion. The blast blew a hole out the back of her head splattering skull and brain matter against the wall and leaving a black powder residue and slight burn mark around her mouth. The teen boy yelled out as the body was hurled into the fire with the other corpses like a lifeless piece of firewood. The La Rosa thug signaled over the handler as he lifted the boy to his feet and ripped off his filtration mask, which had hose attachments leading to an O₂canister feed harnessed on his side; he wouldn’t last long without it. He kicked the teen in the back and yelled for him to run while he counted down from ten. The boy stumbled at first, his hands were still bound behind his back, but gained his footing and started to try and run as fast as he could. The teen had gotten about 25 yards before the count finally reached the zero mark. The signal was given and the handler released the dogs which darted off at break neck speeds; their coats flashing that deadly mesmerizing red bioluminescence as they ran spread apart in a pack. By that point the boy was succumbing to his ill effects of hypoxia and the hazardous air as he fell to his knees gasping for air. If he’s lucky, he’ll asphyxiate before…before the dogs start to eat him. Within seconds they were lunging at him from every direction. Then there was that horrible high pitched screaming that let everyone know that the boy was still very much alive as the first dog clamped down on his leg. The other dog barreled into the teen’s midsection and started biting away, ripping right through the fabrics and into the flesh. The last dog went in for the finishing blow by locking its jaws on the boy’s throat, yanking his body to the ground. His trachea and jugular gave way and were torn out under the powerful pressure of the dog’s jaws. The dogs continued to burrow their heads into the boy’s blood spurting remains, tearing off what pieces of flesh and muscle they could get their mouths on like they’d been starved beforehand. Once they were called back by the handler, much of the boy had been eaten down to the bone; his neck partially fractured apart and one of his arms had been chewed off. Those muthafuckers…

Mav clenched his fist, gritted his teeth, and held back a runny nose as one of the thugs yelled across to him, “Enjoy the show?” He buried all the contempt and hatred deep inside and played along, “They should’ve learned to keep their fuck’n bocas¹⁴ shut”. The thug laughed, “Claro que sí”¹⁵. That incident was just one of the many things a person had to get used to seeing on a daily basis, Mav didn’t like it one bit and especially didn’t enjoy having to lay low while heinous acts like that went on. Yet everyone knew, to question was to surrender and so they didn’t question; they survived and didn’t make any waves or rattle any cages. He was close to his destination; he knew because he was starting to see all of the prostitutes and escort service businesses popping up down the block. He wasn’t gonna kid himself by saying they weren’t lookers, but yes they were all so tempting to look at as he made his final approach down 12-14 North Prince St. to El Blanco y Negro Mosquito Cabaret¹⁶. This end of the block was much more illuminated and full of all sorts of distractions and temptations that’d get any guy’s or gal’s mind off of the current state of things. Mav took a look at the huge electrifying sign above the entrance. You got to be shitting me…they turned the Fulton into a fuck’n hostess club? The neon glowing sign had a young half naked seductive girl lying on her back with her leg kicking up and down periodically; her pink panties moving towards her toes every time her leg kicked up. There was also a big mosquito animation displaying a black and white colored mosquito jabbing the girl in her one breast with its proboscis every few seconds. The loud bass of the dubstep music coming from inside could be heard rumbling the walkway as he walked up to the main entrance past all the other regulars waiting to get in. Mav swiftly moved across the barrier used to keep people waiting in line and continued toward the entrance doors until he was abruptly stopped by a doorman. “Hey! Pendejo¹⁷, where the hell do you think you’re going?” the doorman yelled with a raspy voice as he grabbed Mav’s shoulder. Mav twisted around and pulled a concealed scalpel quickly at the man’s neck replying, “Don’t ever grab me like that again. I’m here on business and am in no mood to be fucked with!” The crowd all stood watch, but others dispersed at the sight of something more troublesome lumbering its way towards the entrance. The ground started to shake beneath Mav’s feet while the doorman just laughed hesitantly, “Ha ha, you fucked up now cabrón¹⁸”. Mav immediately slid his scalpel back away and looked over the doorman to see what he’d already knew was coming. Mierda¹⁹, just what I don’t need right now…a bloody Pbuddy²⁰.

The biological monstrosity was nearly eight feet tall and carried a huge industrial buzz saw with both armored hands. These things were nothing more but proof of the dangers of science run amok in this Biopunk dystopia. Its 8 menacingly glowing arachnid-like eye pieces rose out above the anxious crowd as it made its way toward the disturbance. Mav didn’t have time for any of this and knew all too well that pissing off a Pbuddy could be extremely life threatening if it were to be set off into one of its berserker-like rages; the damn things were so unpredictable and uncontrollable once let off the leash. So he acted fast and pulled out a small disk shaped device and pressed it in before dropping it at his feet. The disk emitted a decent sized smoke screen in the proximate area allowing for him to agilely sneak right past the entrance doors; he was in.

The front lobby was dimly lit and had all sorts of promotional banners and pin ups of local hostess girls and contact information for the various call girl and escort services throughout Lysis. The music was even louder inside than it was outside and the vibrations were tremendous. The place had certainly changed since his last visit so long ago…back when it was still the Fulton. Better check in with the bar keep. “Excuse me, but do you know where I can find Antonio Valdez?” Mav asked the female bar tender who had a nasty burn mark on her forehead that she tried to conceal with her long red hair. “He’s where he always hangs out. 2^nd floor, in the high rise, private box suite #1138”, she replied in a very annoyed manner. “Thanks”, Mav reluctantly replied and hurried his way towards the stairs. There were all sorts of security throughout the place; armed secret police lurking about in numbers; the prying eyes of hidden cameras amongst the ceilings and infrastructure; Pbuddies posted at every exit like armored knights on a chess board; the works. If you slipped up in here and made a mistake, then you’d surely be in a world of hurt. He didn’t get but five feet from the bar without running into one of the local girls of the night. Mav kept walking and made a minor glance towards her; this one was a little more on the revealing side. She wasn’t wearing a filtration mask and made it easy to tell that she was Caucasian; barely 18 years of age and quite eager to flash some skin. She was most likely one of the topless stage dancers judging by the little rose pasties on her exposed breasts. She probably gets top dollar with a body like that. He brushed her off, but not entirely as she moved her body in front of his path; she started to size him up as a potential customer. “Hola alí, buscando un buen tiempo, porque me puede salir de fiesta tota la noche muchacho alto²¹”, she asked as her head scanned his body from head to toe. “Lo sentimos queridos, otra vez será²²”, Mav replied quickly as he smoothly grazed his gloved fingers upon her lush cheeks with his right hand as he passed around her nymph-like frame. Baffled by his refusal of the carnal desires she yelled out amongst the backdrop of the music, “You don’t know what you’re missing…HAZ DE LEÑA!²³” Mav laughed a little to himself as he waved a hand gesture while his back was turned to her.

The entire place leading up the stairs was illuminated with organic light-emitting diodides (OLEDs). Unlike crystalline LEDs, an OLED’s light comes from a thin organic film sandwiched between two electrodes. This film can be sprayed onto nearly anything, even flexible surfaces like paper, plastic, or cloth. The reality of it can have a major effect on anyone’s conception of lighting when you see that the walls, carpet, or even the damn furniture can glow. At every turn on the illuminated staircase were these exotic panels against the walls that depicted silhouettes of young women dancing these very explicit acts like they were meant to serve as little sexual appetizers before getting to meet with the actual girls. The higher up he went the more the occurrence of encountering more prostitutes and La Rosa affiliates rose. As Mav now walked the upper rotunda of the high rise, he could see the various box suites aligning the theatre’s circular construct; some were open while others were mostly shut and guarded. He’d heard a lot of nasty stories about very deviant and unforgettable acts that went on behind most of those closed doors, but the only one that concerned him was the one bearing the barcode number 1138.

He caught a glimpse of the inner theater as he overlooked one of the balcony openings from up high. The curtains were pulled back and the stage was alive with a multitude of strippers, live music, and flashing strobe lights. It all looked like a rave mixed with a musical performance to Mav, but surprisingly the lower booths seemed to be legit and in order; everyone appeared to be enjoying themselves. As he turned away from the overlook balcony, one of the box suite’s automatic doors slid open sideways and a young woman walked out covered in nothing more than a red robe. Her mascara ran down the sides of her pale cheeks mixed with what looked like smeared jelly-like remains of fresh male ejaculate. She hurriedly wiped the filth and bodily fluids from her face with a towel she pulled out from her robe side pocket. She looked up at Mav and he could see this angel with a dirty face; full of contempt and yet a sense of shame in her shell shocked eyes. He tossed her a roll of money and said, “Don’t ever give them the satisfaction. Do what needs to be done to survive then you get out…keep your head above the water”. She didn’t say anything except for a little nod of her head at him to show that she understood him. She ain’t gonna be around long…shit’s so messed up.

He took a few more steps until he turned to face box suite #1138 and boy was it under heavy surveillance. This is it, better keep my shite²⁴ wired straight; play the part, then get the fuck outta here. “You lost or something kid? If you’re look’n where to get your dick wet, then I suggest you run along back downstairs and get with one of the working girls; otherwise fuck off pendejo”, vulgarly said a big La Rosa thug with a hoarse voice ²⁵coming out of his filtration mask. Mav walked closer, within striking distance, and responded, “Valdez is expecting me so if you don’t mind, get the hell out of my way”. The Pbuddy beside him made an inhuman growl and stepped forward blocking Mav’s path and aimed a large minigun barrel inches from his face. “Who the fuck are you?” the guard grumbled out. “Maverick Fleur and this brute better get that weapon out of my face right fuck’n now”, Mav retorted in a raspy and hostile voice as he slapped the barrel of the minigun down toward the floor away from his face. The Pbuddy let out another defensive growl and the barrel of the minigun began to rotate and spin up. The tension was suddenly broken by the voice of Antonio Valdez who opened the box suite’s door and demanded what all the commotion was about boasting, “What the hell is going on out here?” “I surely hope you don’t conduct business in the same manner, Valdez”, Mav instigated. “I told you to admit him as soon as he arrived you dumb fuck; Mr. Fleur, right this way if you would so kindly”, Valdez slyly gestured Mav on to pass through into the large room. “Sir…don’t you want me to send him through the bioscanner first and clear him before he enters?” the dumbfounded guard asked. “Nonsense, we’re all professionals and respectable gentlemen here now, aren’t we Mr. Fleur?” Valdez chuckled as he looked to Mav for a response of compliance. Mav just nodded his head and followed Valdez into the box suite; the door locking in place behind him. Such arrogant sons a bitches, hmph.

Mav was offered a seat in between two other La Rosa lackeys, no doubt so they could keep an eye on him in case the meeting got heated. The balcony suite was a rather large room overlooking the entire theater and scenery of the large cabaret. There was another sickly looking La Rosa thug who sat across from Mav and next to Valdez; he wasn’t wearing a filtration mask, but he clearly was suffering from severe symptoms of normocytic anemia; no doubt one of the unfortunate bastards whose attenuated vaccination reverted back to virulence²⁶. It was a rather unpleasant sight having to look across at this pale grotesque shell of a man whose nose and ocular cavities periodically leaked out blood down onto some of his suit and dress shirt; sick bastard just sat there smiling as it dripped off his face. To the right of this repulsive man was a woman, curiously a woman that shared the same nefarious line of work as Mav did. She wore the typical half mask that most women of Lysis wore and her red burgundy hair was draped over the front of her face, but underneath those hair follicles were her piercing eyes that were locked onto Mav’s face; she rarely blinked or flinched. Mav knew her only as Andrea Velasco or “Pastelito”, a dangerous Colombiana²⁷ contract killer who was notorious for giving her targets Colombian neckties ²⁸after she’d completed her hits. She also had a more peculiar attribute of always keeping a pair of emasculators on her person; it wasn’t known if it was a terror tactic of hers or if those really ever saw use. What most didn’t know about her was that she was a dyed in the wool feminist and lesbian; a pretty volatile combination in this city. Not much else was known about how she came to be in this line of work other than the rumor that her Colombian American parents were killed by La Rosa when a human trafficking operation ²⁹went bad and supposedly she was taken in and trained to become one of their personal assassins from an early age until she grew up and went freelance. Regardless, the woman was as lethal as they came and Mav knew her involvement only meant that she was there as his rival and competition for whatever contract Valdez had cooked up for the both of them. Lysis was like one big proving ground for contract killers like himself and Andrea; it was the perfect environment to birth some of the world’s most resourceful and unorthodox professional killers for hire. The trick of it though was that Mav only moonlighted as one; he never fully embraced or accepted the lifestyle of it yet, but then again he couldn’t deny that he didn’t get off on all of it.

In that moment however, his heart was overtaken by something even more dangerous to his being than the fiendish characters surrounding his person. In the middle of the room was a transparent table and on top of the table was a youthful and completely nude Puerto Rican female lying on her back covered with an assortment of hand foods and sushi in the practice of Nyotaimori³⁰. Even through his filtration mask he could smell the intoxicating and pungent smell of her green apple scented perfume that flooded his senses with euphoria. The flamboyant lighting reflected off of her lightly tan skin giving it this creamy and polished appearance that made it look to be almost edible as the sushi placed on top of it. Her right arm had several tattoos including the flag of Puerto Rico and a large exotic centipede that was depicted so authentically as if it were crawling up her arm toward her shoulder. She had this lavish shoulder length red burgundy hair that was parted at the front of her forehead to each side evenly. The one thing though that stood out to Mav the most was her ravishingly beautiful face; he found it quite mesmerizing when he gazed at it. He quickly found himself in one of his trance-like states in which he could only hear his thoughts and none of the fucking circus going on around him as he observed and cherished this young woman’s infatuating portrayal of the flesh; words could not properly describe what he was relishing in. However, his momentarily secluded state of euphoria was abruptly interrupted and he found himself awake again in this reality…back in this nightmarish life of an existence.

“So, this scrawny looking guero is the one that they all call Maverick? I expected him to be much older. Coño³¹, he looks barely old enough to pop his own cherry ha ha ha…cough…cough”, the repulsive La Rosa thug antagonized as he coughed up blood into a handkerchief. “I’m experienced enough to know how to sever a man’s carotid artery…with my bare fingers, ha ha haa”, Mav immediately replied while creepily moving his long gloved fingers across his neck like spider legs. He couldn’t display any signs of weakness amongst these savage animals. The slightest hint of it and they’d tear him apart; they preyed on the weak with such atrocious persecution. There was no reasoning with them; no silver tongue on earth to persuade them otherwise. The only one thing that these monsters would ever understand was violence; pure unadulterated and prejudiced violence…nothing more and nothing less. “Oh now don’t mind him Mr. Fleur, he’s merely busting your balls; aren’t you Guillermo³²?” Valdez spoke in a calm manner as he prepared an alcoholic beverage for himself from the suite’s mini bar. Valdez regrettably was much like Mav in the same aspect that both were well spoken and intelligent, but frequently at times they resorted to using vulgar words and the local slang of the street. Valdez wasn’t a regular affiliate of La Rosa; no he was part of the Lysisian military. More so, he was a high ranking lieutenant in Juliantte’s primero army ³³and also ran these clandestine operations on the side out of this establishment to aid in discretely removing any dissidents that posed a threat to Juliantte’s regime. Mav couldn’t exactly tell his ethnicity, but figured that he was more than most likely a mix between Caucasian and Spanish with more distinguishable Caucasian traits. He was adorned in a full decorative military wardrobe minus his filtration mask and helmet cover. The uniform itself was full of that ominous and gothic collage of carbon black and white colors meshed in expensive looking leathers. A large metal emblem of the fascist regime’s symbol was pinned on the left chest of his uniform, again making use of an outstretched white hand embracing a black and white striped mosquito as it took a blood meal. Both of the sleeves on the uniform had decent sized arm bands that were mostly black with a white lining and a red rose in the middle of it all. The silver buttons tapered down the middle of the uniform were in the shape of small roses as well showing that the military still considered itself to have roots to La Rosa.

“I have to admit Mr. Fleur, I still find it hard to believe that you were the champion and sole survivor of the Nacido Juegos Gratis³⁴…you certainly pissed off a lot of the bookies by surviving”, Valdez proclaimed with a hint of his own dissatisfaction as he sat back down next to Guillermo. “What can I say; hubris is a fickle old bitch…maybe next time they’ll learn to not judge a book by its cover, but I doubt it”, Mav replied as he propped his left leg on his right thigh and kept his left hand close against his head. “What did you do with the ganancias?³⁵” out of nowhere asked Andrea; her concealed eyes still locked on Mav’s position. Mav turned his head slightly to the right towards her and in a more stern tone explained, “I took it all down to town square one night and burned it; all doscientos y cincuenta mil ³⁶of it. It never really was my money to begin with anyways”. Guillermo coughed up a blood choked laugh while one of the La Rosa thugs beside Mav muttered out in a very coarse voice from his breathing apparatus, “What a fucking waste; estás locas!³⁷” Mav turned his attention back to Valdez while saying, “It gained me an audience with you, did it not?” “It most certainly did Mr. Fleur, but we both know that it is your other exploits and more recent feats that have brought you to our attention. Now with no further interruptions I would like to move along and discuss the…chingadera!³⁸” Valdez was cut short by the loud intrusion of the P.A system that sounded off all throughout the cabaret.

The voice of Michelle Denning ³⁹echoed across the rotunda as the music abruptly stopped and an eerie silence fell upon the theatre, “Attention, atención⁴⁰…Alcalde⁴¹ Hector Juliantte has called for an emergency statewide broadcast to address the nation. Levantarse sons and daughters of Lysis and show your unwavering patriotism before our national anthem!” At that instant, the clattering sounds of hundreds of people rising to their feet throughout the theatre in unison could be heard. They all stood straight and formed an L shape with their left hands and placed it across from their left to their right on their chests. “I feel like I’m back in elementary school”, Mav made note about the current posture. “¡Cállate la boca!⁴²” Valdez heavily whispered at Mav just as the anthem was about to be played. Every monitor in the theatre, the entire nation of Lysis, was tuned in to this emergency broadcast; there were no exceptions. Mav and the crew from his viewpoint put their attention to the central monitor down above the stage; it was truly massive in size. Then within seconds every monitor displayed the enlarged insignia of the La Rosa political party; hauntingly melancholy music began to play. The anthem was composed mostly of soft and saddening piano pieces while the chilling sporadic splendor of a full orchestra caused most listeners’ skin to crawl at its shockingly dramatic melody. More banners were rolled down and hung from the balconies spreading the ultranationalistic fervor amongst the rallied peoples of Lysis; they were all swept up in this anxious moment wondering what was to come from it.

Mav looked down again at the table where the lustful idol still laid regarded as a mere extension of the furniture; she was looking at him as well. He found himself staring into her glassy eyes and could see that she was fighting back, with every bit of emotional strength, the tears from falling down her face. He looked back to the crowds of these zealots and was placed in a state of bewilderment at the shear willingness they all shared to stand tall and proudly place their cryptic hand gesture amongst their beating chests; they all really did buy into the whole song and dance – perhaps he pitied their ill-fated loyalty. He turned back to the young woman and she just shook her head slowly in disdain; she was a fly caught in a spider’s web spun out of fascism. It was times like these that Mav felt grateful he bore a mask; an emotionless face of deception to conceal any facet of trepidation arising from inside. And so he wore this mask, biting his lip hard and taking it in the ass, playing along with this foolhardy game until the opportune moment presented itself to him; then perhaps he could finally take off this mask and do the one thing most would never get the chance to accomplish…live something reminiscent to a life of normality.

As the anthem died down it was immediately replaced by the roaring thunderous applause of the people as the looming depiction of Hector Juliantte emerged into frame. His full set of ceremonial garb was even more spectacular and grandiose than Valdez’s as he stood in front of a transparent podium made of glass; his insignia woven out of glass presently hanging from the middle of the podium. His ethnicity reflected much of Valdez’s own, but Hector’s build was much more intimidating; almost a Viking-like stature and demeanor of a man. His unflinchingly sturdy face was devoid of a filtration mask that revealed these piercing blood red lidless prosthetic eyes, which were prototype retinal prosthesis implanted shortly after his natural eyes were lost due to an attempted eye gouging made by a would be assassin, purveying this ambitious and creepy thousand yard stare about him. He wore his facial hair much like Mav did unfortunately; a close pencil shaved mustache and arrowhead-like goatee strip down his lower lip and chin. Much of his hair surrounding the sides of his head was shaved off and the top most layers were spiked up in place. He was one of the very few people of Lysis to be close to the age of 40; the average lifespan of most people in Lysis after La Virulencia plummeted to the late 20s and early 30s. The man was the epitome of an apex predator in Lysisian society; the alpha dog; the shark patrolling its territories and so forth. These weren’t applauses of loyalty and admiration; they were fearful compliances of subordination and subjugation.

Hector inhaled subtly but deeply as he placed his big gloved hands upon the sides of the podium and bent his head down before raising it up high; he put on a forced smile and spoke, “Brothers and sisters of Lysis! Proud luchadores⁴³ of our nation’s militar biológico!⁴⁴ As of today, you are the hands that bludgeon, the teeth that bite and tear. You are the beating heart of this nation; the vital organ that keeps Lysis alive! With your spilt blood, you nourish us all! The USA wants to believe that we’re evil. They’ve convinced themselves that we’re sub-human, somehow undeserving of the basic liberties to spread ones genes so freely to others. They do this to justify their isolation of us. When our people first survived the selective pressures of La Virulencia, they believed this place to have no future. They were wrong, and in time they came; we all came to understand why. This state! This nation! Our homeland and ecological niche, has gifted us with everything we need to claim our rightful fitness and place in nature. All that is required of us is to embrace our human made evolution and we surely soon will be enabled to transcend our future. The U.S citizen speaks of opportunity, while the U.S bureaucrat speaks of authority, and the U.S diplomat speaks of policy. The people of Lysis do not speak, they ACT, and that is why it is the people of Lysis whom will carve a new course for human evolution! The U.S government calls us bioterrorists and deviant genocidal eugenicists; atheists striving for an abominable manifesto that promotes nothing more than Darwinian extremity, anarchy and forced human evolution! But their interference here and continued manipulative self-involvement in other country’s affairs has done nothing but proved themselves to be agents of their own tyranny! Self-appointed defenders of justice and peace in the world? For what right do they have to tell us how to live! What authority do they have over our very lives? We are a free people and we will govern our lands and our families as we see fit. With our battered and bruised hands placed upon science, unbound by petty morality and ethics, we built this nation up from nothing in a mere 6 months! Our sweat and blood is as much a part of this world as the horrid air we breathe, and the USA think they can take it away from us? They’re either capitalistic fools or madman! There is no understanding without weapons. There can be no dialogue without bloodshed. The USA will be made to understand, and that knowledge will be paid for with their lives. We are evolutions favored children. Nurtured by our anthropogenic mother science, we have grown strong and proudly fit while the so called offspring of Adam and Eve have become god fearing and weak. They are afraid of us and their fear has led them here. The USA roams the world and comes into our home under the auspices of ‘liberty and freedom’; killing and occupying in the name of their laws, and then dare lecture us on morality! They will be held accountable for their crimes, this I swear to you!”

The people were given a brief pause to cheer and applaud before Hector continued. Mav heeded the hints of increased antagonism towards the United States in Hector’s words and wondered what notion of ‘their’ involvement in Lysis he was playing at; he wouldn’t have to wait long to get an answer. Hector stepped down from the podium and then was followed to the side of it where he pointed to a broken and beat man. The man was in nothing more than his underwear and his body was covered in small lacerations that bled slowly down his bare body; they worked wonders with knives. He was propped against a wall bent on his knees; his legs were bound to his arms causing his body to arch backward uncomfortably. All of his finger and toe nails had been removed; his face was severely bludgeoned and bruised; his eyes looked like they’d had a hot iron taken to them. What was keeping this poor man alive? His head was encased in some sort of transparent glass box which had vents on the sides allowing the man to breathe barely. On a closer look, as the man mustered up an inhale through his mouth, it became more noticeable that he had several if not all of his teeth removed as well. A viscous mixture of blackish red blood, saliva, and mucous oozed from the man’s mouth filling at the bottom of the glass box as it dripped off of his chin. Hector bent both of his knees and crouched down beside the man and turned his face back towards the unseen camera crew saying, “Do you see? My people of Lysis, this fraudulent man’s name is agent North; he’s a CIA operative who was part of a clandestine taskforce that was sent to infiltrate Lysis and by all means relinquish my position…permanently”. The crowd of onlookers grew silent but there were a few hecklers and yells from some people who hurled vulgar obscenities at the image of the imprisoned man, Guillermo included. Hector continued, “Agent North, I will ask you this only one more time. Was it President Browning who authorized your operation to have me assassinated?” The man said nothing and spit up some more filthy mixture from his busted mouth into the glass box. He’s tough; I’ll give him that, but ultimately he’s fucked either way. Hector’s left gape of his mouth cringed and he spoke quickly, “Verdad⁴⁵, if you want to play the mule, then we’ll treat you like one”. Hector stood up and closed the vents on the man’s glass box by sliding a glass level to the right and said to an unseen aid, “Dámelo⁴⁶”. Hector was handed a glass cylinder much bigger than his hand and inside that cylinder squirmed and contorted an enormous sized transgenic mutant variation of the Scolopendra gigantea species.

Hector placed the glass cylinder on top of a circular input opening on the top of the glass box and pressed a button on the cylinder; the deadly centipede variant was released into the glass box and sealed shut. At first there was panic and confusion that spouted from the man who could not use his sense of sight to know what had just been put into the glass chamber. The centipede first squirmed into a curly ball upon hitting the bottom of the chamber then unfolded and began to sense its way around the chamber with its feelers groping mindlessly in front of it. The man started to mumble incoherently as his fear and anxiety rose with every little appendage of the centipede he felt touch his face; he was on the verge of losing all control and freaking out. Mav found this measure of execution to be fascinating and innovative on a scientific basis, but he personally and consciously couldn’t stand for it; so he turned away and placed his focus to the young woman still lying on the table. She was still watching Mav curiously, but unlike him she could not hide her reactions or emotions to the sound of that man crying out in terror. She shivered every time the man could be heard shrieking about over the monitor. His screams were quite nerve wracking at times even for Mav who had grown very aggravated by the entire scene; too much time had been spent in this mad house. The centipede made its way up to the front of the man’s face and its feelers aimlessly fluttered about his nose and eye sockets until the man made the fatal mistake of exhaling onto the centipede’s underbelly. It suddenly drew back like a snake in a defensive pose and hissed fiercely; its mandibles widening outward. Within seconds the centipede began to expel hydrogen cyanide gas (HCN) that slowly filled the glass box turning it into a mini gas chamber. The terrified man went into a full state of panic and started shaking his head wildly, desperately attempting to free himself, but his bounds were restrained too tightly against the wall; stopping him from rocking his body to the floor. It didn’t take long before the HCN ions started to interfere with his iron-containing respiratory enzymes in his body and so he began to succumb to convulsions and foam at the mouth violently. These sporadic movements only further made the centipede feel threatened causing it to lunge at the man’s face and plunge its sharp mandibles into the side of his cheek; breaking through the upper layers of the skin. If the man wasn’t dead already then he’d have experienced anaphylactic shock induced by the centipede’s bite. There was a brief silence before Hector signaled for lab aids in hazmat gear to come and claim the corpse, “Feed that to the perros”. He grew more angry and imposing as he stood up and went into a furious rant, “Are you there PUTA⁴⁷? President Browning! Can you hear me? You can try to kill me; you may even succeed one day, pero⁴⁸ you will never be able to snuff out our people’s EVOLUTION! We will choke the streets with our dead before we allow the corrupt capitalistic hands of the USA to set foot in Lysis and dare occupy it for its resources. You come to our city, operating from the shadows, and try to cover up your involvement in black market dealings with Lysis so that only your government will have any knowledge of the biological weapons that you have purchased from us. You betrayed my people once before when you abandoned them to die from disease and famine as you saw fit porque⁴⁹ Lysis represented no strategic importance or resources for you to reap…until now. You have proven your betrayal to us all again by going behind our backs to occupy the scientific wonders that my Lysisian brethren have suffered unbearable hardships to create and then have the audacity to accuse our self-sustaining nation to be the conspirators! Take a look around you perra⁵⁰, your country is beginning to show signs of warring and fracture; your so called allies have begun to question your motives; you see no shame in sending hundreds of young men and women from the lower class to their deaths to satisfy the greed of fat, grotesque, and unfit human glutones!⁵¹ From this point forward! Lysis will cease to comply with any terms; business transactions; and or all communication with the United States of America; any contact hereby made by any of the people of Lysis with the U.S will be treated as treason and punishable by death”. More cheers erupted at this firmly put declaration. Hector breathed in again and gave his closing remarks to the nation, “People of Lysis, as you’ve all just seen, I have dealt with one of the puta’s spooks sent here to feel us out and I further assure you that contingencies are being put in place, even as I speak, to find these other hijo de putas⁵². We will find them… and when we do, we’re gonna rip them limb from fucking limb and send the pieces and viscera across all cuarenta y nueve ⁵³remaining states of the U.S! With that said, sons and daughters of Lysis! Always remember Lysis PARA SIEMPRE⁵⁴!” Holy fuck…I think Juliantte just made a formal declaration of war against the United States of America; the crazy nutter’s gonna get all these people killed just to prove a point.

The monitors grew blank and the voice of Michelle Denning came back into the ears of the people, “This hereby concludes Alcalde Juliantte’s emergency broadcast to the nation. Remain ever vigilant in our endeavor los gentes de ⁵⁵Lysis and buenos noches⁵⁶”. The music returned and everyone in the cabaret went back to their affairs and new found gossip, but Mav soon realized that his own reasons for being here were about to change drastically; he had caught on to why he and Andrea were being contracted out on such short notice. Shite…we’re gonna be snuffing out black ops; might as well shanghai me into the fuck’n military while they’re at it, hmm. Everyone in the box suite sat back down around the table and got settled in again; Valdez and Guillermo were the last to be seated. The two seemed to be debating something in Spanish that Mav found hard to eavesdrop in on due to the pulse pounding music rattling inside his head. Guillermo particularly was not looking so good; like he was dying and atrophying before everyone’s eyes. They finally sat down and Guillermo coughed up some more blood and mucosal entrails into the handkerchief of his that now looked rather disgusting and over used. “What I am about to disclose to you Mr. Fleur and Mrs. Velasco…cannot be allowed to leave this room…understood?”, Valdez firmly said as he made eye contact individually to each hitman. Mav and Andrea just nodded; they’d both much rather listen than waste any time on speech. “Bien⁵⁷, now Mr. Fleur I’ve been informed that you have a rare quality of a stealthy and discrete approach while on most hits; these more subtle ways will help compensate for Andrea’s more…let’s say… high strung tactics. As you both saw in Alcalde Juliantte’s address, our nation is being besieged from within by secretive sabotage and espionage missions carried out by CIA operatives and other deep cover operatives under their command. There have already been a few isolated incidents over the past few days involving the sabotage of some of our minor biological weapons manufacturing plants. Then there were the recent assassinations of some of our research scientists and biohackers who were in the midst of developing prototype viral munitions inside some of our laboratories. Lysis may not be at war yet officially with the U.S, but in actuality it has been engaged in shadow warfare with it for the past few weeks, unbeknownst to the people”, Valdez relayed the details. Mav looked at his watch casually as Valdez took a small pause in his words. 11:30 AM…I really wish this asshole would just spill it and stop wasting my time; this music’s starting to get real irritating. Guillermo took notice of this and shot Mav an ugly look as he picked a piece of sushi off of the young woman’s body exposing her right breast; Mav cracked his neck and stared right back at that vile animal. Valdez continued, “Our intelligence has located the last known locations that the operatives were spotted operating from and Alcalde Juliantte wants a non-military presence to take them…alive and unspoiled. You’ll be free to use whatever methods necessary, but I cannot stress enough the Alcalde’s wishes to have these operatives taken alive”. “You just paint me a face and a place…ha…and I’ll guarantee that these operatives are dealt with”, Mav coldly put it. “Unspoiled Mr. Fleur”, Valdez reminded. “I heard ya the first, second, and third time…Valdez”, Mav quickly and patronizingly replied. “What’s the recompensa⁵⁸?” Andrea interrupted, finally deciding to join the conversation. “…Fifty grand para⁵⁹ each successful capture of an operative; we estimate that there are somewhere between five to ten of them blending in amongst the Lysisian work force in the industrial district”, Valdez annoyingly answered. “You can keep my fee”, Mav promptly interchanged between the conversation. Valdez and Guillermo both turned their puzzled heads to Mav and remarked, “¡Que!⁶⁰” “In exchange for my services, I only want some information that I’m sure a man in your position can divulge to me”. “And what sort of information would that be…Mr. Fleur?” Valdez curiously asked. Mav reached into his trench coat while saying, “Relax…nobody get trigger happy”, and pulled out a small baggy; he effortlessly tossed it over to Valdez. “What the fuck are these… dientes⁶¹?” Valdez remarked as he examined the four wisdom teeth bouncing around in the baggy. “Uh huh, but whose mouth did said teeth come from? Do you remember…before Lysis’ time…about two years ago, the messy hit that was carried out on a family by a bunch of thugs hired by La Rosa; I forget their surname?” Mav nonchalantly asked. “…sí, I believe it was the Flear family; the news media made it out to be this whole tragedy. The father and his eldest son, Michael, were causing trouble for one of the local dealers and eventually got him and his entire crew pinched in an undercover sting operation by the intervention of the local drug task force. La Rosa didn’t like this hitch in their drug peddling business so they hired some local gangers to silence the family’s interference…permanently. All of the family members were slaughtered one night except for Michael, who later died in a freak house explosion in the city residentials; they all said it was suicide. Pero I don’t see what this has to do with anything”, Valdez curiously relayed. “Michael didn’t die in a house explosion; I did him in, and those are his wisdom teeth…proof that I alone was the one who ghosted him”, Mav nearly smiled under his mask as he spoke; his skin crawled out of eagerness. “So what the fuck do you want from this?” Guillermo interrupted. “I want the names and last known addresses of all the men who were hired to carry out that hit”, Mav casually announced like he was ordering up food at a drive-thru. “May I inquire as to why?” Valdez suspiciously questioned. “Look at it this way. Those men fucked up the hit; cut their losses and ran out on the job that they didn’t even finish. Don’t you think that sort of recklessness and disorderly conduct shouldn’t go unpunished? You and I know for sure that neither La Rosa nor the Alcalde would tolerate such sloppiness…even by hired hands”, Mav kept pushing the subject to much of Guillermo’s displeasure; he was getting restless.

“Your…opinion…will be taken under advisement, Mr. Fleur, but until then we will need to run some dental tests on these. Once we can verify dental records, I guarantee you that I will personally put you in contact with one of our intelligence specialists; he will ensure that you receive the information that you’ve requested as payment…verdad?” Valdez took the bait and assured Mav of what he really came here for. Mav stood up from his leather chair and took notice to the La Rosa thugs to his sides getting up shadowing his movements as he remarked, “We done here?” Valdez looked surprised at his eagerness to leave and replied, “What, you’re not drinking? You got someplace more important to be?” Mav ignored Valdez and drew his attention more to the young woman now; Guillermo was getting intolerably far too touchy feely with her body than Mav could bear to stand for. “What the fuck you staring at guero? You may think you hide it well under that mask, pero I’ve seen the way you’ve had a hard on over este coño⁶² the moment you walked in”, Guillermo vulgarly put it as he grabbed another piece of sushi off of the girl’s body. Mav realized that he was being dragged into a sensitive situation; another test of his morals and conscience in the face of adversity. He was torn between making a split decision; he was trapped by his inner conflict between innate conscientious thinking and adapted apathetical thinking. I did what needed to be done…just let it go and walk the fuck out unscathed; it’s not my place to get involved any more than I already have with these animals. Shit…but I know what’ll happen if I do leave…and I don’t know if I can be a spectator to it again. Oh…fuck it, I’m so gonna regret this. “You know, all this fuckin around has got me very hambre⁶³ and I think she can help me with it. This sushi mierda is all fancy and appetizing, pero what I could really go for is some fresh…spread…pussy”, Guillermo taunted and spoke cruelly as he draped his bare hand down the young woman’s mid-section towards her clean shaven privates. Mav saw the fearfulness and distress in the girl’s eyes and every bit of tense body language that she displayed as this monster of a man slithered about her body to slake his lust for the flesh of a young woman’s benevolence. “Let the young woman alone”, Mav let out in a more cold voice. The room grew silent and Guillermo looked up dumbfounded saying, “¡Que dices?” “Dejelo solo, ahora!⁶⁴” Mav’s voice rose considerably as he spoke full Spanish. Guillermo stood up and walked over towards Mav…not 2ft from him still aggravatingly saying, “You may have most of em fooled into believing you’re this sleek and cold blooded killer, but I ain’t buying any of that shit. You best watch yourself raising your fuckin’ voice in here chico⁶⁵, porque in here there be muchachos malos⁶⁶…and I can tell you ain’t no bad man”. At that moment Guillermo attempted to point a finger onto Mav’s chest as he spit a wad of blood and mucous at his feet, but in one flash of quickness, Mav grabbed his arm and pulled him face first down into an uprising right knee that connected square on the bridge of Guillermo’s nose. As Guillermo’s body was sent into one of the chairs a few feet back, Mav swiftly unsheathed dual scalpels concealed at the slash pockets of his dress vest and leveled them both at the necks of the two thugs at his sides with one coordinated movement as he spoke, “I’m not a bad man, pero soy ayunar⁶⁷”. At the same instance, Andrea had drawn her dual machine pistols; one aimed at Valdez, the other at Mav and Guillermo’s direction. One split decision and Mav had turned the room suite into a dangerous Mexican standoff; precisely what he did not want to have happen. “These blades are laced with hydrogen cyanide secretions; you know what they’re capable of…so everyone just…relax a second and let’s work this shit out”, Mav quickly warned as he attempted to stop things from escalating beyond reason. Valdez ignored the machine pistol aimed at his face and just coldly smiled at Mav, “Now I thought we had a mutual understanding Mr. Fleur…is all of this truly necessary? Are you really willing to cause all of this disrespect in my establishment over some puta?” “I mean no disrespect to you or your establishment, but I will not just sit back and watch that fuck’n animal waste my hard earned dinero⁶⁸ by soiling that young hostess’ body”, Mav cunningly responded passing as a client of the young woman. Guillermo writhed in pain and anger on the floor feeling his nose up and yelling, “arrrghhhh! You stupid hijo de puta! I think he broke my muthafucking nariz!⁶⁹” Valdez trying to make light of the situation looked to Guillermo and scolded him, “Guillermo, shut the fuck up and take the pain! Let Mr. Fleur explain himself”. Guillermo piped down and pushed himself up against the back of the room’s side wall holding his bloody nose in place. Valdez returned his attention back to Mav and asked, “So what you are claiming is that you had a prior arrangement in order with this puta? I was unaware of such a transaction…and these sorts of things never slip my mind; care to embellish on the subject”. This one ain’t dumb…I’m gonna have to wing this shit real tight to the chest. “Sí, why do you think I kept checking my watch; looking at her body; and was so eager to get the hell out of here once our meeting was over with?” Mav deceptively construed lies. Valdez looked down at the petrified young woman like a snake sizing up its next prey and quietly asked, “Is what he says cierto…mujer?⁷⁰” The young woman remained as stiff as petrified wood for a few more seconds without so much as curling a lip. Come on señorita, catch my drift and just play the part. Then we can all just end this shit and live to see another day; I don’t need to fight my fuck’n way out of here. Finally, when things looked as if they’d gone south, the young woman softly nodded her head and spoke, “Yeah, Mr. Fleur and I had a discrete business transaction arranged for one of the stage tables down stairs set up for midnight; I should have spoken up earlier”. Her soft and cherishing voice nearly had Mav distracted by the mere sound of it; it was just as soothing as her body looked. Valdez grudgingly smiled and laughed, “Figures, ha ha…leave it to a woman to drag a man into a near fatal standoff. I apologize to you Mr. Fleur for Guillermo’s misunderstanding and you are free to leave…please enjoy your stay down stairs”. “Thanks, now I’m going to slowly lower my blades; Pastelito, I expect you to do the same; you have my word”, Mav calmly said as he slowly and carefully slipped the scalpels back into the side pockets of his dress vest. Andrea complied and lowered her dual machine pistols to her waist side holsters and was the first to leave the box suite without saying any lasting comments. Mav walked to the box suite’s door and before seeing himself out looked back to Valdez and jokingly said, “It’s been a real pleasure doing business with you”. However, before he could exit, he was interrupted by that sweet and siren-like voice stopping him dead in his tracks, “Mr. Fleur…I expect you to be down there and seated when I arrive; I just need to freshen up”. Mav turned and saw the honesty in her eyes like she was trying to hint to him that he had better be there when she came down and replied, “Sure thing…señorita”.

…Moments Later…

Mav was seated down in this illuminating circular leather couch-like booth right in front from the main stage and told that his hostess would be with him shortly. He wasn’t too happy about any of this; he was not one for deviating from a set plan. But yet here he found himself kicking back in the heart of a seedy cabaret awaiting the arrival of some hostess girl; just another call girl here in Lysis for all he knew. This is turning out to be one fucked up night and I don’t think I’m gonna dare ask if it could get any worse. I’ll just be polite to the girl, chat a little and then be on my way; simple as that.

“¡Buenas tardes⁷¹!” a very euphoric and soundly voice was heard by Mav above all the noise and banter of the theatre. He turned around and felt himself fall short of breathe when faced with the very same young woman from the box suite…he was awe struck in his place. She was so very beautiful to his eyes that still remained hidden behind an indifferent mask. She wasn’t quite as tall as him, but she certainly filled out perfectly for her slender frame. The youthful lovely was wearing a dark green iridescent and tightly strung down corset that gave her bust a small rise and also left her shoulders and arms bare. Her lower portion was clothed in these remarkably low trimmed black leather shorts while underneath them ran form fitting fishnet stockings which displayed a whole manner of patterns streaming down her tone legs into a pair of red slip on heels. He honestly couldn’t even find himself dreaming up this sort of woman; not even on a good night’s sleep. However, he quickly found his fascination being drawn back to her face; there was hardly even a single ounce of flaw or shortcomings on it. Girl’s got to be a tough little hellion to sport an unmarked face such as that…perhaps that is what’s drawing her to me; who am I kidding, that’s probably what’s drawing me to her…I’ve gotta stay focused.

Mav broke out of his little trance and replied as he offered up his hand for the young woman to hold and be seated, “Hola alí mi querida⁷²; may I say, you look muy hermoso ⁷³tonight”. The young woman smiled and gave him an awkward look as if she’d never been given such a compliment before. “Thank you Mr. Fleur…I’m flattered”. “Please, call me Mav; everyone else mostly does anyway”. “You know your Spanglish isn’t too bad…your Spanish is also quite spot on; kind of makes me wonder if there truly is a guero underneath all that kit”, she speculated while moving closer to the side of Mav. “I assure you, underneath all this kit lays a young guero with skin as pale white as that there menu”, Mav jokingly said while pointing to the vanilla colored menu lying at their table. The girl laughed a little and continued on, “Let me introduce myself properly. I’m Cassandra. It’s really nice to meet you!” “Likewise”. “What would you like to order?” Cassandra politely asked referring to the menu. “Sorry, but I don’t drink”, Mav replied as he soon noticed that the menu was nothing but a lineup of alcoholic beverages. “You’re serious? I find that hard to believe”, she replied finding it odd for someone in Lysis to not drink alcohol. “Yeah I know it must seem strange and all but unlike most people in this city, I plan on living past my 30s; you know…healthy mind and body”, Mav sarcastically replied with a hint of sincerity in his tone. “Well then theoretically speaking…what type of drink would you be more interested in drinking?” “I’ve always wanted to try some absinthe⁷⁴; probably won’t come close to my cherished taste of Ribbit energy drinks⁷⁵, but absinthe would be the one and only alcoholic beverage I’d try out” “A very exotic choice…I think I might try some myself. Shall I order us up a glass of some verte absinthe?” she kindly asked pointing to the label on the menu in front of them. Mav reluctantly agreed, but more out of politeness and hospitality he went along with it. “Do you come to hostess clubs often here in Lysis, Mav?” Cassandra asked, never breaking eye contact with his extended eye pieces of his filtration mask. “Actually this is my first time in one, believe it or not. Have you gotten used to your work here yet Cassandra?” She suddenly looked a little unsure of what to say at first before finally letting out, “Not at all! I’m still nervous all the time”. “Nervous? You don’t look nervous at all to me”, he lied trying not to make her feel uncomfortable around him…a young man; a woman’s tormentor in Lysis. “Well, I don’t have much experience talking to men. That’s actually why I took this job, so I could get used to it”. Mav knew exactly what she meant by ‘get used to it’ and it shattered his frozen over heart into tiny shards that caused his skin to shiver; these were dark and sexually deviant times. “Oh yeah? So how is it working? Have you built up your confidence at all? I bet these La Rosa hombres can be quite the challenge”. “Not even a little bit. I wonder what I’m doing wrong?” “Try talking to younger men much like myself. If it was someone close to your own age, I bet you wouldn’t have any problem holding a conversation”, Mav insisted on trying to help her out; ironic as he was rarely one to have conversations with women himself. “That would be so much worse! I’d have no idea how to deal with an aggressive college-aged boy! I’d much rather talk to an older man. That way, I’m not so acutely aware of the male-female dynamic all the time and can talk naturally”, Cassandra nearly laughed as she gave Mav a playful nudge on his shoulder. “Hmm. That’s funny because I used to be a college boy myself about a few years back and yet here you are seemingly having no problem keeping this conversation flowing”, he teased.

The conversation was interrupted by a female waitress who placed two small sized reservoir glasses filled with naturally colored verte absinthe at their table. The glasses both had a specialized mixing spoon placed on top and a sugar cube was placed over top of that. The spoons themselves were crafted in the shape and design of the worm wood leaf. The waitress continued by pouring a pitcher full of ice cold water over each sugar cube until it dissolved through the spoon and into the reservoir diluting the alcoholic beverages. After she was done, Mav said his thanks and the waitress just gave him a funny look; he sometimes forgot that manners were hardly ever used in seedy places such as this one, but he refused to forget his. Mav pulled out a black rubber tubule that he proceeded to screw onto an output cap on the left side of his mask enabling him to drink without removing his filtration mask. Cassandra took notice to this and decided to hold off from questioning about it and instead raised her glass to Mav’s. The glasses were slightly tapped against each other while both young adults said, “¡Salud!⁷⁶” Despite what seemed like their conversation was incomprehensible amongst the loud and bustling night life of the surrounding cabaret patrons, it did not go unseen by prying eyes.

“Hmm, hmm, hmm…mira ⁷⁷at that fuckin’ guero and puta down there Valdez; it’d be so easy”, Guillermo spitefully said as he watched from the balcony pointing a handgun down towards Mav and Cassandra’s direction. Valdez looked occupied as he fretted over a tablet touch screen flipping through various intelligence reports and other classified documents regarding the current operation he had been tasked with handling. “You haven’t said shit since they left…what’s up your ass?” Guillermo again spoke towards Valdez as he rubbed the bandage over his busted nose. “The Alcalde is mobilizing a massive military buildup of some of Lysis’ finest soldiers…he has set his gaze on the outlying states surrounding Lysis…it won’t be long before the call is made”, Valdez finally spoke as he walked over to the balcony. “So…the old bastard’s finally decided to make a move”. “Yes, he feels that now is the time to display Lysis’ strengths and capabilities to the human world; a time to expand and propagate. Despite the nation’s harsh selective pressures on our people, we are still seeing a rise in population growth. We would think that the population would be curbed and set on the path to equilibrium what with the high mortality rates and lower life span of the populace; however, it has only spurred further resilience and adaptability in our people. Our females are becoming increasingly fertile at very early stages of their adolescence and are exhibiting polyzygotic traits-multiple fetuses being produced by two or more zygotes resulting in multiple births; the highest case being the birth of sextuplets. We can only assume that this is a newly adapted reproductive strategy in which multiple offspring are being produced in hopes that a few survivors will live to adulthood to pass on their genes. The problem we are now facing is that quite frankly, our emerging species is becoming too adaptive and resilient at an increased rate as not enough of these offspring are dying. The Homo sapiens lysibus off shoots are not succumbing to much of the selective pressures as its predecessors did and instead we are being faced with agricultural issues arising from this as simply put it…we don’t have enough resources to feed this influx of all these new fucking faces”. “So the Alcalde’s thinking we’re heading towards another famine and our only option now would be expansion and to monopolize other means of resources to sustain and promote healthy growth for our people”. “That’s exactly what the Alcalde is thinking. Expansion was inevitable for our nation once it became self-sustaining to the point where we used up all of our natural resources. He also sees more sanctions to be wrought upon Lysis in the coming future and that would only force his hand further to act in the best interests of the nation’s people. He knows that for the time being the U.S can only operate these small covert missions to try and contain the truth of their involvement with Lysis giving us the much needed time to prepare our invasion stratagem. With that in mind, he has made concealing our most sensitive bio weaponry prototypes to date to be protected at all costs from falling into the hands of these incognito CIA operatives”. “So we now place our trust in these hired mercenaries to silence the operatives, mierda! For all we know they could be co-conspirators with the operatives and then there’s the fact that one of those hijo de putas sucker punched me and held the entire room in a standoff…don’t tell me you don’t feel the slightest bit of suspicion Valdez”. “The chico got you good though…I’ll give him that, but yes that Maverick fellow has aroused my suspicions. However, they both fit the Alcalde’s demands and we will do as he so sees fit…no exceptions. This brings me to my next subject that the Alcalde specifically instructed me to carry out”. “You’re talking about the girl…right?” Guillermo smiled as he pointed to Cassandra. Valdez grinned and replied, “There can be no witnesses to what was said in this room”. Guillermo laughed as he turned to glance at the two corpses stacked in the corner of the box suite; the two La Rosa thugs both displaying single gunshot wounds to their heads. “I suppose you’ll want the same for the two limpiadoras ⁷⁸once they finish their job?” Guillermo inquired as he wiped blood from his nose. “Nobody comes into my establishment and disrespects me…not Maverick Fleur…not anyone. Take a few of your men and make sure that puta disappears. Now I don’t care what you do with her beforehand…just make sure she’s never heard nor seen from again”, Valdez ruthlessly commanded Guillermo. “I’m so going…to enjoy…this”, Guillermo sadistically said as he dragged out each word while he licked the blood off his upper lip; his bloodshot eyes never leaving the sight of Cassandra.

Mav found himself outside leaning up against a wall close by the cabaret staring at a card held in his right hand; the acidic rain fall sliding off it due to its waterproof properties. The card was all professional and fancy looking, but that wasn’t what caught his gaze. The card had the name Cassandra Liza Cortez on it complemented with a pin up picture of her next to the contact information from the specific escort service she belonged to; his guess about her was spot on, but came as no surprise, regrettably. He leaned forward off the wall and tossed the card into a nearby waste disposal without thinking twice about it. Like I got a shot in hell of ever making that work. The girl’s probably seen more action in a day’s passing then I’ll ever get in a life time. All it did was open old wounds and gave him the gnawing reminder to stop chasing after things he knew he could never have; lusting over the carnal touch that tortured his psyche. He’d be a liar if he didn’t acknowledge the hurt it brought him however. That constricting sensation deep down so much worse than any raw uncomforting visceral pain he’d ever experienced…knowing that in the end he’d be alone and content with his self-imposed solitude; a part of him did yearn for this sort of life after all. He’d always be that chivalrous gentleman dancing with the shadows never being able to feel the sensual grace of the light; always left to ponder and marvel at it…never would he be given the chance to touch and experience it for himself as it stared him in the face and teased. How it razed and played havoc with his emotional state of mind, but still he stayed fast and struggled on not knowing why; perhaps he still had some sense of optimism left in him or he had grown that apathetic to stop caring anymore.

He took a few steps forward before it suddenly hit him as the rain patter ran off the side of his hat, a crawling sensation rising up his back and elevating the short hairs on his neck; someone was waiting for him and he had a pretty good guess of who it was. “How long have you been waiting for me out here; you have been waiting for me…right?” Mav said as he turned around to face Andrea who emerged from the side alley of the cabaret now wearing a black leg length trench coat and a black and white side cap on top of her now tied back hair exposing her bright blue eyes, except something was off with her right eye. He soon realized that it was a motionless glass eye prosthetic in place where her right natural eye should have been; she hid it well. “I’d say about veinte o treinta minutos⁷⁹”, she quickly responded twirling a pair of emasculators in her right hand. Mav showed no signs of intimidation and walked closer to her…slowly while saying, “Look…if this is about the hit, take it if it means so much to you; I’m only doing it for a more personal stake in the matter…I don’t need the money and I’m not about to feud over it”. “Why did you help the girl…back in the cabaret?” “Maybe because I’m not like all the other twisted fucks in this city; you didn’t seem to be bothered by it so much”, Mav boldly said. “You do realize that your actions are gonna have consequences for that call girl”. “No, I don’t think you realize what consequences will come for everyone who was in that room. Valdez will have everyone involved summarily executed and then…then once we finish our hit; we’ll be next in line. However, it’s not like the first time I’ve had to dodge a bullet before from him”, Mav quickly patronized Andrea while pointing out her own naivety. She didn’t move much and then suddenly her tone changed from that of a hardened killer into this more compassionate cadence, “It must be rough on you to keep up this charade; to hide your face behind a mask every day, pretending to be what you never asked for…just so you can survive a little while longer”. “This is my face”, Mav remarked as he pointed to his filtration mask. Andrea nodded her head down a little in disbelief before raising it again and saying, “You’re not the only one who lost a family to La Rosa…Michael”. Mav remained unresponsive to that name’s pronunciation at first like he truly had forgotten his own name. “Who the hell are you lady…really?” Mav questioned as he moved closer ever cautiously…he had gone to great lengths to bury that name; how had he been made? Andrea didn’t reply, she just slowly faded back into the alley and signaled for him to follow. I can’t believe I’m gonna follow this crazy bitch into a dark and creepy alley.

So he followed her, but made sure to keep enough distance between her and himself; more than an arm’s length between the two. “How do you know my name Andrea; if that even is your actual name?” “Shut up and just hear me out Michael”. “Don’t use that name around here; there’s no telling if these pendejos have this district bugged or monitored”. Andrea held her arms in akimbo and gave him this obvious expression like she was going ‘no shit’. “This hit can’t go down”, she continued before whipping out a badge holder that flipped open flashing Mav with what he started to suspect; a CIA identification card. “Jesus Christ…you mean to say you’re fucking SOG (Special Operations Group)…and here I thought I was a risk taker”. Andrea quickly hid the badge back on her person while saying, “You catch on quick, but I suppose that is expected from someone in your position”. “So this whole time you have been a company girl playing a dual role under the very noses of La Rosa…ha ha…oh I love it”, Mav joked while checking behind him. “Yeah, well you’d know all about living a dual life. However, you misunderstand my affiliation to the CIA”. “Whatever do you mean”, Mav sarcastically asked. “I’m a SAD (Special Activities Division)/ SOG Paramilitary Operations Officer and have been for a little over a year now working with a few other operatives attempting to organize resistance groups within the population to usurp Juliantte”. “So you’re just a mercenary much like myself…except you’re doing the CIA…no wait, the U.S of A’s dirty work here in Lysis”. “I’m upholding justice and keeping our country…your country safe from erupting into bloody bioterroristic civil war!” “Hahahahha…now I know you’re full of shit. What do you take me for, some kind of mental incompetent? You really think the CIA is here in Lysis to monitor and sabotage Juliantte’s regime? Hell no, they’re here to cover up the black market arms deals they were involved with and more or less bury this entire city along with the truth; they just want the bioweaponry and all those scientific wonderments being constructed in the foundries before the shit hits the fan. If they really gave a shit about the people and justice as you so put it, then there would have been an entire military operation sent in…not these shady covert ops that’ll just end up getting more people killed over paranoia, so don’t force feed me that fear mongering babble bullshit. I intend on keeping my neck free from a noose and from ending up like one of those poor bastards hanging from the street light poles”, Mav defiantly said as his voice rose while pointing to the many corpses dangling from street light poles hung by their broken necks. “No, I take you as a disillusioned and scarred young man who gets his kicks by playing vigilante…don’t you want to stop all this deception and pretending? Don’t you want to go back home?” “Home? We can’t go home, you and me. There’s a line people like us had to cross to get where we’re at today…there’s no going back to civil society from that. If we’re lucky; we do what’s necessary and what needs to be done, and then we die. That’s what those rich pricks outside this city will never understand…we are the most dangerous and feared motherfuckers because we’ve already lost everything that we hold dear and they have everything to lose while we take and shape all of that misfortune and burning primal rage inside us to create a split personality of our own image to do these things that no one else dares to do. No…all I want, Andrea, is retributive justice for my family and then all of these schemers and hypocritical governments can kiss my ass goodbye”. Andrea took a brief pause before answering, “Look, Mav, what Juliantte and La Rosa has done, is still doing must be stopped at all costs. We can’t allow his regime to leak out of Lysis and spread to the surrounding states…more families will be made to suffer the same fate as ours did. Your country needs you…don’t willingly turn your back on it and allow it to be engulfed in bioterrorism, you owe it that much to at least consider coming to its aid”. “I think you mistake me for someone who actually gives a shit about national security and as far as I’m concerned, I don’t owe the red, white, and blue shit; if anything it’s about time old Lady Liberty has the fight brought to her nickers…get those cowardice rich pricks off the side lines and into the game”. Andrea shook her head saying, “You’re no different than the subversive monsters lurking within these walls…it’s truly tragic”. “Yeah, well maybe I would’ve turned out alright if someone wouldn’t have blown my father’s face off with a shotgun and the government wouldn’t have shit on me and the peasants every chance they got…I came to terms with what I am a long time ago, Andrea, I’m not proud of the things I had to do, but I did what needed to be done none the less and adapted to survive; I’m sure the same could be said for you, Pastelito”, Mav calmly said as he folded his gloved fingers together to ease his tension. “Well then…I won’t waste anymore of your time, but I ask you to please reconsider the offer”, Andrea politely and punctually put it as she handed him a small transparent chip. “My handler’s contact information…should you ever change your mind”. “You find it wise to trust me with such sensitive information?” Mav questioned immediately. “Michael, if we can’t trust each other…then…then these people really do have no hope left. We’re the last line of defense…if we don’t do something, then evil truly will triumph in Lysis”. “…I’ll think about it”, Mav replied as he tucked the card into his trench coat. Before Andrea disappeared into the darkness of the alley she made one final gesture to Mav saying, “I almost forgot…gracias”. “For what?” Mav hesitantly asked. “For making me a rich lady. I always had faith that you’d survive and win it all in the end”, Andrea remarked as she referenced his victory of the Nacido Juegos gratis. She’s got a valid point, but Christ I’m just one man; I can’t fight a war for these people…not now at least ha ha ha. If I lay low, Juliantte’s regime will spread like a virus, but if I put my cooperation with the CIA and we stop Juliantte, they’ll raze Lysis to the ground to make sure no knowledge of such atrocities took place under the U.S’s watch and no doubt screw me over in the process…there’s gotta be another option.

Mav set out to make the ominous and lonely journey back to one of his apartment complexes; he’d become very nomadic in the past few years following his home’s destruction and his true self’s apparent demise, never staying in one place for too long…it kept him alive that way. However, all that he could think about at the moment was that girl, Cassandra, and what Andrea had warned him about her involvement…for the first time in a while he felt regret and remorse for his actions; actions that left him with the miserable conscientious feelings that he may have indirectly just got this beautiful young woman’s death warrant signed. Goddammit! I have to go back; I have to save her before it’s too late…too much time has already been wasted though; I hope she’s still alive.

The rain wasn’t letting up at all and Mav found himself nearly running back towards El Blanco y Negro Mosquito Cabaret with a complete disregard for drawing any attention towards himself; he needed to slow down and pace himself more before nearby secret police realized something was up. Suddenly the small LED light on his O₂capsule near the side of his filtration mask started to flash red warning him that his filter required a change. “Son of a bitch!” he mildly exclaimed as he unscrewed the expired capsule and screwed on a fresh one from his trench coat slash pocket; he was in no mood for any more delays…he was already running on borrowed time as is. When he arrived close to the cabaret, the sound of the music and nearby propaganda monitors were drowned out by the now present intimidating and intense march of the Lysisian militar biológico that thundered down the streets in what appeared to be a pre parade exercise before the festivities to follow the coming dawn of Halloween. It looked like one of the infantry divisions of the Primero army as there were hundreds, probably thousands as far as Mav could see emerging from the haze all covered from head to toe in those multilayered carbon fiber fabric uniforms worn over top of air tight suits. Hazmat demons in a one way hell march is what Mav summed up about this little visage. Most of the ranks were shock troopers who wore very little body armor and relied more on fast and furious overwhelming tactics combined with the uncanny use of biological munitions and savage close quarters combat; it wasn’t unusual to spot much of these detachments wielding cutlass-like swords sheathed to the sides of their battle skirts. Many of these shock trooper class Lysisians wore tight fitting gray to carbon black trench coats that were tied down at the waist just before touching the knee length battle skirts of theirs. These boys were usually the front runners of the Lysisian army and were hailed more as living reminisces and the splitting image of the original La Rosa guerilla fighters who adorned such attire while defending Lysis from the National Guard during La Virulencia; they saw them as glorified defenders of the Lysisian people, but Mav saw them for what they really represented…vicious and grudgingly respectful yet elite warriors of transhumanistic warfare…the human world was not ready for this sort of biologically dirty in your face type of warfare and Juliantte seemed hell bent on wanting to make an example out of America by a show of ruthless force; the rules of engagement weren’t gonna be pretty to say none the less. The banners of La Rosa were held high within the march by the colorguard while American flags were set ablaze by flame thrower units and the searing emissions of white phosphorus sending a clear message to Lysis’ neighboring states. Mav blended in with the civilian crowd and onlookers at the side of the streets who cheered the march on and joined in by burning American flags and waving La Rosa banners and flags up high…Juliantte’s words had riled the people up once again and many of them would end up choking the streets with their deaths at the climax of this conflict to come; after all it was all part of a natural plan to weed out the weak and unfit of Lysisian society. Just as a juggernaut of an armor division began to roll in behind the frontliners of the infantry division, Mav slipped back towards the aligning buildings into the shadows as he searched for any sign of this call girl amongst the deafening roar of the monstrous tanks that fired flares and jet streams of fire into the air like mechanized dragons roaming the night.

Before he prepared to enter into the dismal back alleys of the Arts District, Mav turned in response to the sudden reaction of the nearby crowd like they were all gasping out in astonishment at the sight of something happening in front of the armor division in the march. As he peered through the small gaps and holes of the crowd he noticed that a young teen boy was injured and laying out at the edge of the street like he must have fallen and twisted his ankle after attempting to hand one of the shock troopers a flag; it wasn’t uncommon but spectators injuring themselves in the process was. He yelled out in pain and reached out to the crowd for a hand to pull him away from the street edge as a colossal tank moved in mere feet away from his position; it showed no signs of stopping or using a detour in its path. They all just stood watch and waited for the horrific scene to play out like this was just some sort of added sick entertainment for the crowd to view as the march carried on. Mav could do nothing as the crowd was far too thick for him to swim through to get to the front and save this desperate young boy from his horrific fate…he was powerless to intervene once again and was forced to play spectator to the macabre of humanity unfolding. The teen let out one more inhuman plea for help through his filtration mask before the wide treads of the tank were upon him…truly a horrible way to die so young. The last of the boy Mav saw through the cracks of the crowd was his face as the weight of the treads and tank combined compressed down on his head causing his skull to give out and explode through the filtration mask like a rolled up ketchup packet exploding in an instant before disappearing underneath the massive tank. Once the tank rolled past, all of the boy’s body was in a complete and utter bloody mess. When people see any other sort of animal smashed on a street or road, they just shrug it off like it is a natural part of their lives, but to see a human suffer the same fate and suddenly it becomes this wondrous spectacle as everyone gives in to this sick curiosity to not look away from the unnatural mashed remains. His skull and cranial matter was smashed into the pavement much like a fly that’d hit a windshield while his legs were flattened to a bloody pulp on the other side. His mid-section was the only part of his anatomy that still remained 3-dimensional and gave off a twisted and gory appearance like tourniquets had been tied at either side of his torso. The crowd remained amused and eager to examine the remains of the human road kill before their eyes like they were all under some sick curious train of thought; like they all wanted to see this gross transgression because they’d never seen something like it before. It’s a madhouse…I gotta keep searching for her and right fuck’n quick.

As he progressed through the dark and ominous alleys of the Arts District, the rainfall had come to a halt and was replaced with a dense fog that disrupted visibility substantially. Mav was relying on his hearing to navigate through the thick of the fog and detrivore infested alleys; these moist and decomposing domains were ideal for many of the centipede and fungal species, not to mention the various parasitic life forms that could make any mammal’s life a living hell. The further he progressed the more the scenery decayed and took on this necrotic look…and then he started to notice the bodies; piles upon piles of charred and melted corpses discarded like garbage for the detrivores to dispose of. There were so many flies about that their movement cleared up some of the fog surrounding the bodies as they hurriedly laid eggs and nestled amongst the ankle deep of death. When he caught a glimpse of some of the bodies he soon acknowledged that most of them gave off these horrific last second poses…their faces twisted and contorted in ways that only extreme temperatures could cause…while the victims were still alive. He came across one such putrid display and nearly found himself jumping back in a startled reaction…the corpse looked as if it were still alive! Centipedes and maggots infested the corpse making it appear as if it were reanimating and moving again. The face…it was the face that got to him the most as it gave off this preserved expression of last second pain and agony like this person was yelling out before the white phosphorus presumably used began to incinerate and melt his or her flesh. Mav looked down from the corpse’s face and soon realized that the torso and arms were melted together with a small infant’s remains; this person probably was attempting to shield the child up until the fiery end. As horrifying and unsettling this discovery was, Mav didn’t dwell on it any longer and trudged on alone…ankle deep in death. Once Mav started to hit an area dominated by bioluminescent fungi he started to be able to regain visibility once more and it couldn’t have come at a better time. Before he took another step, he suddenly felt something…something big crawling up the side of his left leg that made him freeze as still as a statue. He peered down to nearly lose his cool at the sight of a large centipede mutant, nearly the size of a small ball python, crawling around his left leg and moving towards his torso. The menacing arthropod was as wide as his arms and the size of its mandibles were even more shocking to glimpse at the closer its head got to Mav’s torso; those things could do some serious damage if provoked. He slowed his heart rate down by taking small controlled breathes and kept absolutely still as the centipede continued to creep along his torso and make its way towards Mav’s left arm; the thing had some weight to it too so that only made things more uncomfortable for him. Once it climbed to the top of his left shoulder it hovered its ugly head over to the front of Mav’s face supporting its weight by wrapping around his arm with the other half of its lengthy body; its hiss could now be heard as its feelers groped about his mask. He drew in one deep breath so as not to exhale out the filtration’s exhaust onto the centipede which would cause it to react in a defensive manner. The up close and personal encounter lasted seconds before the centipede withdrew from Mav’s body and faded on into the moist and damp floor. Mav exhaled before saying aloud, “Holy shit…man that fucking thing was huge! I’m never gonna be able to sleep good tonight with that beastie in my head”.

He turned another corner and then he started to hear something and it didn’t sound like any of the local fauna in the area…these were echoing pleas for help from a young woman’s voice; was he too late? Mav stealthily crept up to the edge of the alley wall and remained crouched down as he peaked around the corner of the alley wall. He could make out about five or six bodies in the vicinity, all but one were men, however, those details were not the most trifling to him. Aw shit, these guys are Ele Ele…this makes things…complicated. Mav took notice of the double leech insignias stitched on the shoulder pauldrons of the four uniformed men standing watch and realized that he had stumbled into a Lysisian death squad…some of the worst and most barbarically vicious of La Rosa and they were what stood between him and saving the young woman. As he looked closer he could definitely tell that the young woman was Cassandra only she was wearing a filtration mask and there was another recognizable figure that was roughing her up a bit…Guillermo. Her clothes were savagely stripped off of her body like a female butterfly emerging from her cocoon to only be harassed and assaulted sexually by another male overly eager to have at her. He clawed and sadistically groped and fondled her nude body like some sex driven fiend as he salivated at the mouth underneath his mask; his eyes dilated and swollen with impure thoughts and cruel intentions. There was no way to sugar coat the predicament he was faced with in those dwindling minutes; he was being confronted with a very fucked up situation that could cost him his life and for what after all? Some call girl he barely knew? For reparations of not acting before when people who needed his help were given a cold shoulder by him and left to die horrible deaths? Quite frankly he felt the need to give up his narcissism and selfishness for once and do what he’d originally set out to do instead of simply adapting to save his own neck…to do the right thing no matter the costs or consequences. “Ayudame! Ayudame!⁸⁰” she screamed while the heinous man slapped her around some more; blood whipping across her forehead with every forehand to backhand slap. Mav still sat crouched at the alley corner undecided on how he would approach the situation; he wanted to plan this out, but it was looking like he was going to have to free style the whole one man assault.

For a brief split couple of seconds, Cassandra turned her head in his direction and made eye contact with him just like that young teenage girl did before she was brutally murdered. It was the same gnawing feeling, like she was peering through his eye pieces and looking him right in his naked face…silently begging for his help…anything to stop the pain…anything at all? Fuck this! Mav slipped off his trench coat and slowly crept in on the first two death squad members until he was within two feet of them; their backs turned away from him. He positioned himself right in the middle of them still unaware of his presence; his stealth was commendable. He carefully unsheathed dual scalpels from his dress vest and took them up in both his hands while arching his arms into the form of an X. He could breathe upon their necks and they’d still not realize that he was right behind them; it was scary to him sometimes…acknowledging just how quiet and agile he was when put to the challenge. It was in these moments that he lost himself and gave into this ferocious and swift self of a young man; an innate and merciless killer that felt alive and euphoric in these terrifying moments. As he silently rose to his feet only a breathe away from his targets, he could swear that he could hear a whisper in his head fiendishly say, “Welcome to hell…Michael”. He slowly exhaled as adrenaline surged through his body and within a split second he swung his arms, his mouth opening up into a frenzied scowl, with precise and gratuitous violent aim into the respective exposed sides of the necks of the two unsuspecting men; so clean a strike yet brutal a method. In that short flux of time, he felt it…the blades as they were sent piercing through the epidermis; through the jugular vein; through the cartilage of their tracheas and out the other end of their necks. The raw force behind the sequential blows was so powerful that the two men were tossed to the filthy ground instantly left to choke on their own blood incoherently within the shadows; the scalpels still stuck in and out of their necks. Mav followed through with this deadly maneuver by equipping his right hand with a short-bladed punch dagger; one of his more favored side weapons. The punch dagger had a “T” handle designed to be grasped in the hand so that the blade would protrude from the front of one’s fist; typically between the 2^nd and 3^rd finger. Mav knew the pressing need for a subtle and stealthy execution, but that didn’t mean he had to play it clean and painless with these sick bastards. He snuck up behind the third target and arched his right hand back while making a tight clenched fist and took aim at the man’s cerebellum just below the cranium where it connected to the spine. Mav rose up again and with his left hand he grabbed the man’s left shoulder and firmly held him in place as he punched with such fury and aggression into the back of the man’s skull. The blow came too quick for the man to react or even make a gasp as the dagger was thrust through fabric, bone and finally brain matter and then ripped back out causing freshly warm blood to spurt out from the puncture point made by the precision entry. Mav stayed clear of the blood spray as he lowered the limp corpse to the ground and rolled it aside in the cover of the shadows. He held out his left arm and rolled back his suit sleeve to unveil what looked like a strange bracelet wrapped securely around his dress shirt sleeve. He quickly unclasped the bracelet and rolled it open to reveal a hidden piece of serrated piano wire that he called “Moonlight Sonata”. He unraveled the wire carefully and clamped the bracelet back on before moving into position to take out the last watch guard. Mav outstretched the wire with both hands and within seconds he wrapped the entire wire around the neck of the man and yanked on it hard and tight as he twisted his body to tug the man’s body back onto his left shoulder like he was carrying a heavy sack. The man panicked and fretted with his hands at first, but this only urged Mav to yank the wire much more. The serrated wire violently shredded and lacerated through the man’s neck severing both of his carotid arteries in the process. Mav could feel the nasty vibrations of the man’s flesh being torn open along with the explosion of blood expulsing out from the choking laceration all over the man’s mask and chest, but still the man gave fight. So Mav gave it one rougher yank until he felt a sudden release on the wire followed by the sickly sound of cartilage being cut through and the eerie noise of air exiting through the man’s torn open trachea; the man’s arms and legs dropped and hanged lifelessly. When it was over, he didn’t even bother to fish out the piano wire embedded in the man’s neck so he let it lie and dragged the grizzly remains to the side, but not before confiscating the man’s rapier sheathed at his side. The distinguished sword wasn’t anything like Mav’s favored curve hilted katana that was custom made, but for now it would suffice. This should help get a point across…hmph.

By now, Guillermo had increased his brutality of Cassandra in his bewildered state as he continued to satisfy his obscene hungers. Her clothing was mostly shredded off save for her underwear; her nude body covered in lacerations and blood was running down her back. “Loosen up you tight bitch!” Guillermo yelled as he violently pinned her nude body face down with the force of his boot slammed against her back. She let out an exhausted cough through her filtration mask forcing her lungs to cope with the pressure. He forced her head downward into the dirty debris filled pavement while using his other arm to arch her lower back and rear upward; spreading het wet and blood dripping legs apart. “I said fucking loosen up cochina!” he yelled again through his breathing apparatus as he slapped her backside roughly and donkey punched⁸¹ her head mercilessly into the pavement. The young woman, now whimpering and beat, tried to breathe through all the mucous, blood and dirty acidic rain water that ran down her face under her mask.

She was fading from fighting back and giving any signs of struggle; she was drained. Guillermo continued his nefarious act and followed suit by starting to undo his belt while his other gloved hand began to snakingly pull back the young woman’s sky blue panties in a confusingly passionate way. “It’ll all be over soon marioneta”, he whispered as his breathing began to become more heavy and erratic. Before he could remove her underwear, a long shiny and silvery pointed blade violently pierced his right side and emerged ripping out the front of his torso; a forceful clean thrust penetrating both clothing, tissue, cartilage, and lastly bone. The thrust was so strong that the man dropped to his knees in anguish. Guillermo let out a gargled yell as his eyes widened exponentially beneath his mask at the sight of his own impalement. A familiar gloved hand padded at the knuckles grabbed his left shoulder as if perching on it and a recognizable voice jokingly spoke out, “Doesn’t feel so good? To be penetrated without ones consent…does it?” Cassandra rolled aside and huddled into a ball trying to cover herself up once Guillermo released his grip on her. “Fuck you guero! The gato’s out of the bag now…we know who you really are now…ha ha ha ha”, Guillermo taunted as he began to spit and cough up blood into his filtration mask. “Is that so…then who am I?” Mav gravely retorted as he twisted the rapier’s blade clockwise; his punch dagger still gripped by his clenched right hand. “Only one hijo de puta that could’ve wanted the names on that list you spoke of…arrrgggghhh”. “That sounds more like you got me mistaken for a dead man”. “That’s exactly what you’re gonna fuckin be if you remain in Lysis…even here a dead man can make enemies”. “Ha ha ha haa, story of my life…get your ass up”, Mav sarcastically laughed as he made Guillermo rise to his feet; the rapier still impaling his side. He kicked out his legs from beneath him and made him kneel on the ground facing Cassandra’s still slightly traumatized body. “Look at your work motherfucker! Men do not treat women like this you sick fuck”, Mav yelled into Guillermo’s mask showing his hatred for this sadistic behavior. Guillermo said nothing and just coughed up more blood into his mask. “Look at her! Do you even realize the carnage you’ve committed?” again Mav aggressively hurled the question on deaf ears as he pulled the filtration mask from Guillermo’s blood and mucous soaked face. A whole disgusting mixture of bodily fluids oozed out of the mask as it was ripped off; pouring about the ground and over Guillermo’s chest. Cassandra almost broke a smile at the sight of her would be rapist and murderer bent at the mercy of this young man; strangely enough she found herself fascinated by how lethal yet smoothly Mav operated through the whole predicament without suffering a single wound. “Is it really all that hard for you to look her in the eyes? Is that why you had her forced to face the ground? You’re ashamed of the vulgar and evil monster that you are and so you take refuge behind that mask while you take pleasure in your twisted felicity”, Mav continued to insult the vile man. “Chupa mi polla⁸²”, he spitefully choked out and spit up more blood towards Cassandra as his left hand inched towards the inner portion of his sports jacket; he was reaching for something very slowly. “You know man…you really are a disgusting piece of shit and you deserve nothing less than to die”, Mav calmly said as he retracted the rapier from Guillermo’s side and tossed it aside. Guillermo grunted and yelled aloud like a wild animal as the blade exited expulsing freshly oxygenated blood out both openings. Mav stood close by observing his reaction intently. Beneath his mask Mav shared no empathy what so ever for such degenerates of his own kind, humans for that matter. He felt like killing these rabid men would never be enough to atone for what they did, but he was no torturer or sadist. He got no pleasure or rise out of these little wet works he did besides the satisfaction that what needed to be done got done and he was still alive once it was all over with…how he hated what they stood for. Guillermo managed to somehow regain his footing and rose up laughing and choking up blood like some crazed maniac on death’s door step. Mav remained calm and readied himself for the inevitable death blow that he would be provoked into giving Guillermo, however, what came next…he could not have been prepared for. “heh heh heh…I heard he went like a scared and frightened little bitch in your arms…su hermano⁸³, ha ha ha”, Guillermo taunted brazenly as he mocked Mav’s brother’s death by imitating it as he pretended to choke on his own blood while holding his throat with both hands; his eyes blood shot and yellowing as he rolled them around seizure-like. Mav found himself saying nothing except for a small gasp of a chuckle before he was upon Guillermo tackling him to the pavement. One brief scream of pain was all that Guillermo got out when Mav began to puncture his face and skull repeatedly with the punch dagger. Mania and rageful wrath consumed him with every bone crunching strike as he found himself unable to stop this crazed butchery of this man’s face. Cassandra stood up in horror at the sight of this young man’s relentless butchering and slowly tears started to fall down from the sides of her eyes. “You MOTHERFUCKERS ruined my life! You took everything from me! You massacred my family!” Mav began to violently yell out in exasperation as he continued to punch in and out…in and out; the tainted blood flowed in spray streams with every retraction of the dagger. “You forced me to forget my life! You made me turn myself into a KILLER! You fucking hear me…I had to euthanize my own BROTHER! ”he yelled into the lifeless corpse; tears blurring his vision. In the midst of this foul act he thought he could hear his mother’s cries from behind him and it snapped him out of his rage and stopped the relentless butchery, but not before letting out a venting roar that echoed through the dark alleys. He soon realized that the cries were not of his mom’s but were from Cassandra who was urging for him to stop; perhaps she didn’t wish for him to resort to such barbaric methods as La Rosa. Mav rose up to his feet and felt the tremors upon his right hand that still clutched the punch dagger; the remains of one of Guillermo’s eye balls were impaled on the dagger. He peeled them off and remained frozen in his tracks for some time; this was too much.

Mav observed what was left of Guillermo’s face…and quite frankly, it wasn’t a pretty sight to say the least. It looked like someone had taken a nail gun to his face…almost hard to believe a person was capable of such viciousness. His skull was punctured and perforated twenty fold and in some spots the skull was cracked badly and smashed in from the combined force of the dagger and fist connecting with the fracture points. He’d been here too long…Lysis, and now he was realizing his worst fears; he was becoming as much a savage as the animals he loathed and killed. I fucked up…bad; what am I becoming? He turned to Cassandra and asked politely, “Are you alright…huh, what the fuck am I saying, of course you’re not”. “Are you?” she replied and he knew what she meant by it. “I don’t think I’ve been alright for quite some time Cassandra”, Mav hesitantly replied as he hurried over to retrieve his trench coat to allow for Cassandra to cover up with. “Here, put this on”, he quickly said while turning his head to the side still showing some courtesy. “You can look at a man whose face you just pulverized, but you seem to have trouble looking at a half nude woman?” Cassandra curiously asked noticing Mav’s mannerism. “Just showing some common courtesy…what, would you rather have me staring at you?” “You’re a strange young man…Mi…Mav”. “Hmph, yeah I know, but at least I’m honestly strange”. For a brief moment Mav checked over the corpse of Guillermo and found an empty holster…the side arm was missing. Before he could turn around to check on the other bodies, shots rang out close by that alerted him to draw his own pistol in the direction of the shots. To much of his surprise he quickly holstered his pistol as soon as he realized that the shots were from Cassandra; Guillermo’s smoking pistol at her side. She’d fired an entire clip into one of the La Rosa death squad members; tears of anger gliding down her worn face. “He wasn’t dead…I wanted to see what it felt like; I’m not sorry”, she spoke aloud as she stood over the corpse that was now riddled in bullets. Mav took the gun from her hand and placed it near the other corpse and then proceeded to pull out a small vial of concentrated sulfuric acid. He poured it all over the pistol so to erase any prints that she may have left on it; La Rosa would surely check for them. “That was real foolish…someone’s bound to come looking now”. “I’m sorry…the things they made me do…La Rosa”, Cassandra nearly broke down in tears again. Mav tried to comfort her before asking, “Please tell me that you have a means of transportation nearby because mine ain’t exactly close by”. Cassandra nodded her head and pointed the direction to go; the two set off in the cover of darkness and haze in search of a respite away from the city limits. Can I trust this young woman? Either way, she’s the closest thing I got going as a means of a safe house until this coming heat with La Rosa settles down…goddammit I hate having to use her like this.

…More time passes by…

It was nearing 2:00 AM when the unlikely pair arrived at Marietta Manor, a lavish villa on the outermost portion of the city limits more near the suburbs; the estate had been abandoned by some of the more wealthy and prosperous socialites of Lancaster right around the time of La Virulencia…how Cassandra came into possession of this luxurious three story residence was the least of Mav’s concerns when he entered through the large wooden double doors. Wow, what a mansion…not your ordinary house that’s for sure. The foyer was a large open entrance hall with marble flooring in the design of a black and white chess board; there were even 2 ft. tall chess pieces off to the sides of the entrance…knights, rooks, bishops, a king and a queen, etc. There was a central stair case complete with a red carpet adorning the stairs down towards the double doors and matching lit pillars on either end at the bottom of the stair case’s railings in the design of serpents slithering around a central pillar reaching to the top with open mouths giving the illusion of breathing fire. The central stair case branched off like a T and on either end was connected by diagonally inclining stairs leading to the uppermost balcony floor that stretched across the foyer horizontally and led to separate doorways; equally pristine in their design and hand carved indentations. Much of the white walls were covered in masterful large scale oil paintings that were hung up in fixated cases. Most of the paintings depicted elicit scenes of orgies taking place in grasslands while others showcased flower filled gardens and entire life-like landscape recreations of forests and woodlands. Much of the hall seemed unsettling quiet…so quiet that the flicker of candle lights could be heard throughout the foyer. From what he could make of it all, the place appeared to be not running on electricity noting all of the candles and bioluminescent plants assorted throughout, but they certainly made a profound effect on the lighting of the entire estate.

Cassandra turned around looking at Mav who was still taking in all of the sights of the mansion and said laughing a bit as she took off her filtration mask, “I know what you’re thinking right now…who did I have to fuck to get the keys to this place?” Mav didn’t respond…he was still in a rather piss poor mood over what had transpired and he usually never let those things get to him; he always tended to laugh at stuff no matter how ludicrous the situation may be, but here he found himself on the verge of holding back the emotional barrage of tears. “You didn’t say a single word on the ride up here…and why are you still wearing that mask? I know you’re not from the working class, so it’s not like your body depends on a constant oxygen feed”, Cassandra questioned again attempting to make small talk with the young man. I don’t want to get her involved…she’s all so beautiful, but it’s far too late for that. “It’s alright for a man to cry”, she calmly replied interpreting his body language. “It’s not alright for one to maliciously butcher the face of another”, Mav finally spoke in a more clear voice; his true voice. “You were given no choice…we both know what they would have done to me if you wouldn’t have showed up…Christ…if you wouldn’t have been there”. “There’s always a choice…we all have to make them, but in the end our choices are what make us. What I did back there…that is not what I do; how I conduct myself. I know that I may be a killer now…maybe even a necessary evil, but goddammit I’ve always done it clean and strictly by the books…never acted out in such reckless hate; like some ravenous beast. Yet…I chose to do it; I chose to stab and pound that horrid man’s face into the pavement and it upsets me so much because I now realize that I’m not as impervious to this place’s immoralities and sickness as I originally thought I was”, Mav continued to express his worries and emotions on the subject. Cassandra walked towards him and reached her arms around his neck to unzip his head cover before taking off his fedora and filtration mask while saying, “And you think that this place has made you an evil person? I don’t think you’re evil Mav; an evil person wouldn’t have remorse and most certainly wouldn’t have risked his life to come to the aid of a tainted flower such as myself. Don’t ever say that again or even think that way of yourself…you are a good person”. Cassandra took a step back to get a better view of his face; he looked just as young as her. “Not what you expected is it”, he replied smiling a little causing his half Glasgow smile scar to cringe just a bit on the left side of the gape of his mouth towards the middle of his gaunt cheek; a small amount of blood could be seen coming from the gape of the scar showing signs that it wasn’t fully healed yet. “A little more grizzled, but you certainly look convincing”, she jokingly said as she scanned the topography of his pale and gaunt face. “Well 3 weeks without a shave will do that to a usually well-kept guy like myself”. “In that case, you’re welcome to use the upstairs bathroom whenever you feel the need to”, she said while pointing to the doorway on the left side of the upper balcony. “I’d like that a lot…is it okay if I use your shower as well; I’m ashamed to say that I haven’t had a decent one in days”, he bashfully said while twisting his goatee strip at the end of his chin. Cassandra nearly laughed and gave him that angelic smile while replying, “Really? I hadn’t noticed. You don’t stink at all…heh heh. Yes, you have my permission to use the shower, but I have to warn you…the hot water heater has been done over ever since I moved in here so it’s gonna be muy frío⁸⁴”. “ha ha, figures…that’s fine with me; as long as the water pressure is good, then I’m cool with it”. “Bien, I’ll leave you to it while I go and have a smoke; been dying for one all night”, Cassandra replied throwing a wrench into Mav’s mind; he disliked smokers, but he could bear with it if he had to. “Don’t you find that just the slightest ironic…you smoking”. “Yeah, it really is ridiculous isn’t it? Is it a problem for you?” “Well…no, this is your place and I am your guest so it really isn’t my place to say what’s what”. “Mav, as far as I’m concerned, you have just as much a say in this place as me so if it bothers you don’t be shy to speak up about it okay”. “It’s fine, really…I’m gonna go get that shower now”, Mav said as he started to ascend the central stair case. Cassandra took off his trench coat and hung it up on a nearby coat rack in exchange for an over coat of her own and she proceeded through the left double doors into a large dining hall complete with tapestries and a decorative fire place; the enormous rectangular dining table made of glass was adorned with a multitude of silver wear and candles. The room appeared untouched and the constant ticking of a nearby grandfather clock echoed consistently alluding to the fact that this young woman had been living a lonely existence…much like Mav. She walked over slowly and pulled up one of the glassware chairs next to one of the windows and sat down in a fatigued manner. She opened the window a bit enough to feel the cool breeze enter and touch her exposed skin; she pulled out a cigarette from her coat pocket along with a small box of matches. She swiped the wooden match on the end of the match box and lit her cigarette before drawing in a subtle breathe and exhaling the smoke streams out the window into the foggy ominous haze surrounding the night.

Mav stood watch from the upper balcony over watching the elaborate yet condensed dining room scenery; his eyes fixated on Cassandra calmly enjoying her smoke. I wonder what’s going through her mind right now. She seems like she might be enjoying herself down there…this place does give off an eerie sense of closure, but yet she also seems lonely; she just wants someone to talk to and here I am acting all tight lipped and cold like some uppity jack off. I think…ah hell; I think I’ll need to apologize to her for that. He smiled before he entered through another door that led to a narrow hallway consisting of more doors; the inner workings of this house were like a small labyrinth. He started with the closest door on his right and opened it…the room was empty. He proceeded to another on the left…this one looked like it was being used as a storage room. When he opened the next door he paused for a second as he saw that the whole room was filled with sewing machines and entire rolls of fabrics and leathers hung up on holding racks; it looked like a makeshift clothing assembly and manufacturing room. He could see some finished sets of entire clothing lines hung up on overhead rafters encased in plastic dustproof wraps and other fabrics still in the various machines like they had been stopped mid-way through their production. As he looked more towards the back of the room he could see what looked like a draft office containing a desk with a slanted surface to pin up blue prints and sketches of in progress clothing attire. Above that desk office were a few small monitors projecting still frames of a family; only one face looked familiar to Mav. They looked happy and it was quite obvious that these frozen pieces of happier moments were taken some time before La Virulencia, but there was no denying that these were pictures of Cassandra’s family before the formation of Lysis transpired…before the times of blood and debauchery. Suddenly, Mav realized that he was no longer the one doing the watching when he heard the soft steps of Cassandra enter from behind him. He turned around slowly so not to startle her and looked to her with an indifferent expression waiting for her to speak first. “I see you stumbled onto my sewing room…just a hobby of mine I divulge in whenever I get the spare time”, she calmly said as her eyes looked past Mav towards the drafting office. “Looks like more than a hobby to me…this is all top quality work Cassandra; how did you ever manage to acquire such skill and craftsmanship?” “Muchas gracias⁸⁵, I suppose I got most of it from mi madre; growing up she always let me join in with her and help sew clothing. That was way back when she used to work in a sewing factory; you know the retro ones that still utilized hands on craftsmanship and those relic types of machines to produce a more authentic look and finish”. “Yeah, I remember those factories…most of them used to be based here in Lan…Lysis before La Rosa nationalized them and started using them to manufacture much of the uniforms and clothing lines for the military and La Rosa party regime”. Cassandra’s face cringed a bit at the pronunciation of those notorious factories; they represented a sure death sentence to anyone assigned to work in them and Mav was beginning to get the feeling that this was what sealed her family’s fate. “…I…my family and I were forced into work at those factories following Juliantte’s reign to dictatorship in the early days following La Virulencia. We slaved day and night in shifts meeting over demanding orders for weeks on with a bare minimum of sleep and nutrients. Then came one day when my family’s assembly line fell behind on an impossible order…and…they were made an example of; all 46 men, women, and children condemned to death in industrial sized hydrochloric acid vats. I escaped thanks to a family friend and soon after found work at a local escort service and haven’t looked back ever since…I needed something reliable to put food and drink on the table; I’m not ashamed of it either”, she found the strength to confess her horrible story as she wiped the runny mascara laced tears with a wash cloth from her upper cheeks. “Aw shit, I’m so sorry for bringing it up; we all did what we had to do to adapt and survive that nightmare and there is no sense in judging over it”, Mav said trying to show some compassion in his words as he walked back towards the door. “You don’t have to apologize to me Mav, if anything I should be apologizing for dragging you into that mess back in the city. The bathroom is straight down the hall and the last door on the left”. “Cassandra”, he politely called her name as he made it part way down the hall. “Yes, Mav”, she quickly responded turning to make eye contact. “You’re not alone in this struggle…I just thought you’d like to hear that”. She smiled and nodded her head before saying, “It does…finally having a kind face to talk to”. This place is so fucked…I don’t know how much more of these tragic and macabre stories I can take before I see myself suffering a complete psychotic break, but that’s just not my style; it’s so easy to let go and give up and I refuse to give in to such temptation.

When he entered the decent sized bathroom he found himself plunged into a room full of blue and white color tones illuminated by the vast array of candles and rather large bioluminescent plant vines surrounding the entire perimeter of the room. He shut the door and to much of his displeasure the door knob appeared to be broken making it unable to be locked. It took him a good couple minutes to get undressed and hang most of his clothes on the rack adjacent to the lavish sink and counter top. He placed his hand upon the edges of the sink and took a good look into the mirror to observe the face of a young man he hadn’t seen for weeks. It had seemed like months since the last time he was able to gaze upon his own face; it all appeared so surreal to him like he had almost forgotten what he looked like underneath the mask and that dreadful scar that bled so slowly and viscous-like; for a moment he felt as if he could still feel the searing kiss of the glass shard lacerating the flesh and tissue. He didn’t dwell on it too much longer before searching the assorted drawers for some shaving cream and a razor blade. As retro as it was he still enjoyed shaving with a hand razor; he always found it more reliable than those electric shavers and facial hair remover lotion applicants. He started with his right side shaving away the right triangular shaped lamb chop of facial hair and worked his way to under the side of his neck before rinsing the razor and continuing on to the left side. As he slowly and carefully began to shave over his scar he started to feel it coming, the gradual rise of pressure around his eyes moving toward the inner pits of his tear ducts; the chilling sensation about his cheeks that rebounded down the back of his neck and shoulders. His under portions of his eyes began to fill with tears before he blinked deep and hard releasing single droplets down his face that started to blush just a little; he threw the razor against the counter top and wiped his runny nose. There was no sense in holding back these emotions he felt at the present and so he wept as he lay naked and hunched over the sink counter top breathing out all of his stress and frustrations. Deep down he realized that after tonight and once those bodies would be found, the only purpose that it would serve is escalation and further vigilance in Lysis; that also meant for him to survive he would have to further delve into the viciousness and unrelenting hate within himself to combat the coming storm…and that’s what saddened him more than anything…his existence and sole purpose in life was becoming nothing more than a cold and calculating merciless agent of vengeance and reaper of malevolent human beings. He was finally understanding that he was living in a world full of enemies that would only continue to push him to the brink of paranoia and insanity should he cease to resist and should he leave, he would condemn his family’s name and the lives of the people in Lysis that needed protection; protection granted from only someone like him who could roll with the punches; who didn’t have anything else to live for but time and leaving his mark in history; who would be the one to stand in the way of death and smile before charging head on into the gaping maw of the abyss resilient and fearless till the bitter end.

He grew back composure again and washed his face with cold water from the sink and picked up the razor and finished styling his mustache and goatee strip. It never crossed his mind if Cassandra had overheard his little break down in the bathroom being that the estate was so quiet, but to him it was more of a mental fortitude type of deal; if he showed that he could succumb to the pressure then it would be viewed as a sign of weakness and to get back to the wrong lot that Maverick Fleur was prone to weakness would risk everything that he fought to establish behind his alias’ lore and mystery…not to mention his own life and the lives of anyone who got close to him. After he finished up shaving he jumped into the shower and slid the shower’s glass distortion door shut and turned on the faucet water first before turning on the shower head. He stepped back at first away from the shower’s cold spray of refreshing water and reached into it with his arms first to test the temperature of the water before plunging his whole body into it. She wasn’t kidding about the water being really cold; been a while since I had a shower that was this cold. Suddenly and unexpectantly the bathroom door opened up casually and in walked Cassandra who started to undress herself as if she planned on getting in the shower too. That’s precisely what she did to much of Mav’s shock as she slid the shower door open and hopped inside mere feet from his own nude body. “What the hell are you doing?” Mav asked in a timid manner as he covered up his privates with his hands. Cassandra nearly laughed as she dipped her hair into the shower head stream of water and shivered a bit before saying, “I was covered in filthy rain water and blood…you actually thought that I wasn’t gonna need a shower too”. “No…it’s just…I could’ve finished up before you jumped in that’s all”. She turned around to face Mav who turned his head to the side so not to look at her nude frame out of courtesy and respect. “You know it’s not like the first time you’ve ever seen me naked before; why all the eye dodging?” she inquired with an attractive smile. “It’s how I was raised…how I show my manners around women; it’s not polite to stare”. “So you’re telling me you’re gay”, she joked a bit. Mav turned his head and pointed his hand towards Cassandra saying, “No! Hell no”. “Nice manscaping you got going on down there, hmm hmm”, Cassandra joked as she pointed out his shaven privates and smirked. Mav covered himself up again and began to blush to much of her amusement. “Relajarse⁸⁶, you got nothing to be ashamed of”. “I tend to like my privacy…this is all just a little awkward for me right now”. “You haven’t been with many women before have you Mav?” “Is it that obvious ha ha, no…I haven’t. Sure there have been a few that crossed brief paths with me, but nothing ever amounted into an actual relationship beyond being associates…a date or two. After the scar…my chances went from slim to none, but I suppose it’s all for the better”. “Surely a bright and guapo⁸⁷ young man such as yourself has had someone in his life time”, she persisted to question his relationship status and edge more into his sex life. “I’m afraid not, and I’m not ashamed to say this, but I’m actually still a virgin”. Cassandra paused for a second and stopped scrubbing her side and said, “Que? You’re kidding?” “I shit you not; I’m as abstinent as they get…masturbation aside heh heh”. “Still waiting for the right one huh?” “There was once a time when I thought I’d found the one; you know that one you can’t get out of your mind and are willing to do anything to keep by your side…to die for”. Cassandra turned and asked more curiously, “So, what ever happened?” “Honestly I never really understood what went wrong, but in the end I lost her and…and it broke my heart for the first time in my young life. I dunno, maybe I was just a fool for ever letting myself get so emotionally attached to her and caring too much, but I’d really be a fool to say that I still don’t share feelings for her”. “This uh ‘her’ have a name?” “Sure she does, but I’d much rather not say it…it’ll only just bring up bad memories and I could really do without more of those at the present”. “Sorry to have brought it up…do you mind if you could lend a hand and help wash my hair…if you’re comfortable with it”, Cassandra politely asked trying to lighten the mood for the both of them. Mav reluctantly agreed and lathered her beautiful burgundy hair with green apple scented shampoo; his long fingers interweaving throughout her clustered strands of hair. So many racing thoughts had started to run rampart within his mind after every subtle touch made by his fingertips; it was killing him, this illusion of safety that he knew would eventually decay in time.

Her skin he started to notice, it was so smooth and perfect besides the few small lacerations she’d sustained from the glass littered on the ground she was nearly raped upon. It was so hard to hold back all the raging impulses and hormonal intensities at bay as he took in every scent and texture of her body while washing Cassandra’s hair. At any moment he felt like losing control and mounting her in sexual embrace, but he held strong and kept to his dignity and pride; the cold shower helped too. Never in his wildest of dreams would he ever imagine sharing a shower with such a goddess, but yet here he was…quite funny the way things tended to work out in the end. In the midst of his bliss he noticed the large tattoo on her back that looked like a large Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) stretching from her upper back more towards the center of her neck down towards her lower back near her rear end. It consisted of two long strands moving in opposite directions to each other and was anti-parallel. The center of the strands had what looked like nucleo bases, but there were only 4 of which he could see tattooed on and only then did he realize what they represented. These were markings inked on by the escort service she worked for to allow her clients of how many times she had been called upon…a truly sick display of business ethics. One nucleo base inked in for every time she was used…it was like branding cattle to the slaughter and it did nothing but rob this beautiful young woman of her individuality and personality as a human being instead seeing fit to treat her like a piece of property to be rented out and recycled for profit. The sight of this tattoo made Mav think for a second to himself processing the relevance and implications it could have on him. Is that what I am to be to her…just another nucleo base…another notch on her back? I really hope not…for both our sakes.

“Do you ever miss your family…Mav?” Cassandra asked from the side of the king sized bed in the quiet candle lit room that the two now laid in all tucked away and ready for a good night’s sleep. “Remind me again why you think it’s a good idea for us to be sleeping in the same bed”, Mav sarcastically asked avoiding the question for the moment. “…I…I have night terrors from time to time and it just would make me feel a lot more safe knowing you’re there by my side to help me should such an incident occur”, she answered turning her head to the side of her pillow to face his face. “I’ll be sure to help you Cassandra should anything ever happen…you have my word and I swear to you that I am a man of my word”, he calmly replied as he handed her one of his pistols with a silencer attached to it over to her to be tucked under her pillow; he did the same with the sister pistol. “I would never doubt your word…it’s just that I’ve spent so many years in a bed looking to the other side imagining and expecting to see a loving partner there only to be filled with disappointment after disappointment when I see that the space is vacant and then it only ever becomes a fantasy. Now that you’re here…I feel so overjoyed and excited to finally lean over and see that person I’ve only ever dreamed about; have you ever had such thoughts?” “Cassandra, I’ve been a loner for the most part of my life save for a few associates here and there and my family, but yes I’ve spent countless nights wondering if I’d ever get the chance to wake up one day and be able to say that there’s someone right there beside me who actually gives a shit about me and will always be there when the worst of times descend upon our lives”. Cassandra sat upright and smiled at him before asking him something more theoretical, “Do you think we’re in hell, Mav…do you think this whole place is some sort of hellish purgatory created for us to merely survive in?” Mav looked her straight in the eyes and said, “Cassandra, for all I’m concerned humanity is hell…and it is heaven. We all are capable of creating our own forms of heaven and hell; our monsters and angels; our heroes and villains, but more importantly it is what we choose to do with such creations and how we choose to act on them when our paths are crossed. Yes, this place is a horrible…horrible place of existence, but that does not mean that we have the luxury of quitting and giving in to live horribly along with it and its otherwise lost inhabitants; you just remember that should there come a time when I’m no longer around and you find yourself alone again”. “You know you’re really something special”, Cassandra sincerely replied as she reached out to caress the side of Mav’s now bandaged scar that she properly stitched up for him. “I’m just a nobody amongst the crowd who got too fed up with the crooked way of the world and decided to do something about it”, he replied smiling as much as he could as he touched her smooth silky hand upon his face. By that moment Cassandra moved over closer to him saying, “I am glad to have met you Mav”. “As am I Cassandra”. She leaned in close to him and the two embraced each other’s lips and locked faces as they kissed so passionately as if tonight might be the last night they’d ever see each other again. “No one’s ever kissed me like that before”, Cassandra remarked with a smile as she released her hold on him. Mav smiled back exclaiming, “That’s the first time I’ve ever kissed another woman before, but that’s always a good thing to hear I suppose”. The two didn’t need to say it, for it was written all over their expressions and emotions in that moment. Out of all this horror and relentless blood shed the two had still found a way to love and be loved; overcoming impossible odds that night had set them both on a path; a collision course that saw the both of their fates intertwined and now had them under the mutual realization that may be…just maybe their meeting was more than a mere coincidence and felt more like they belonged to each other in this pivotal time of unrivaled instability. Cassandra reached into one of the cabinet drawers beside the bed and grabbed what looked like some sort of small portable data assistant device small enough to be placed in the palm of her hand. She handed it over to Mav who asked, “What’s this for?” “Just read it, İpor favor!⁸⁸” Mav used the touch screen to scroll through the files of data consisting of names, medical records, addresses, and residences among the few details on the PDA. Upon realizing what she had just given him he looked up in amazement at her smiling face. Cassandra gently placed her hand upon his and looked him in the eyes with a more serious face saying, “Happy 23^rd birthday…Michael”.